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...

My First Wine Fraud Email

Hooray! Fishing comes to the world of wine and spirits.

I got this email the other day. It's obvious fishing/wire fund/money order spam to me, but might not be if you happen to sell wine in Texas. Be on the lookout, and God Bless America

Gerrard Silver <salest106@copper.net>

reply-to    salest9@gmail.com

to    salest9@gmail.com

date    Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 9:06 PM

subject    Thailand Wine Inquiry !!!!

hide details 9:06 PM (13 hours ago)

Hello,

    My name is Gerrard Silver , an American .I live and work here in Thailand . Actually when I was home last time in Texas, I got a bottle of one of your wines from a friend as a birthday gift and I love the taste Since then , I have been planning on getting your wines for my wedding coming up soon, here in Thailand ,I got your contact through your website and I want to know if you will be able to supply me some cases of those wines.I will be making my payment via my American issued Visa & Master card .  

    I am registered with a shipping agency in USA, which has other representatives in USA .So you are not to get the wines shipped but the wines will be picked up at your location by this licensed shipping agency. The shipping agency have all the appropriate exportation documents and permits papers, Therefore concerning the shipping of the wines , I will refer you to this shipping company that will come for the pick up of the wines in your location once I have made my payment .They have got items shipped to me here twice without any delay .

You can also forward me the list of Wine Vintages you have available.

Kindly get back to me so that I can make my orders.

Warm and Best Regards

God Bless America

Gerrard Silver

This Arbor Day, Plant Your Butt on a Barstool

Earth Day is April 22 and Arbor Day is April 30th: What are you doing to celebrate? You could run out and plant a tree but that would be messy and dirt would be involved. Gross.

Luckily several booze brands make it easy for you to do almost nothing while getting the full bragging rights of eco-activism. That's so American!

Here are some ways you can help the earth while harming your liver:

VeeV acai liqueur hosts the Treetini website, where you can learn locations of bars in which to order a Treetini- made with Veev, natch. For every drink you buy, they'll plant a tree. But don't have more than 10,000 of them this April, because that's the limit!

There's a Chilean wine called  Root:1 that is sponsoring a “Together We Can Plant a Forest” program. Luckily you don't have to go meet all the filthy riffraff planting the forest. Instead you buy a bottle of their wine, and they throw a buck (up to $10,000) to the Global ReLeaf fund.

 Tru Vodka doesn't need no stinking Arbor Day to plant trees. They've done a tree for every bottle since they launched- about 60,000 trees so far. 

The well named PlantATree Wine plants a tree for each bottle of wine you buy. This may be only available in Canada, where they seem to have plenty of trees already.

Trinity Oaks (from California) has a different name but a similar program, planting a tree for each bottle. They claim over 2 million trees planted already.

One Hope Wine actually has several different hopes, depending on the wine. Merlot purchases go to fight Aids, Chardonnay money goes toward battling breast cancer, Cabernet fights Autism, Zinfandel supports troops, and each bottle of sauvignon blanc sold gets a tree planted. My hope is that they have a good accountant to keep it all straight.

Purus Vodka's website looks kind of broken but on it they make the very abstract promise that, "One precious sapling will be planted and nurtured somewhere in America for each person who registers on this website."

Glossy Booze: Early November Edition

Glossy Booze is a regular Alcademics round-up of booze stories in magazines.

Details (November) has a story on underappreciated red wines.

Imbibe (Nov/Dec) has recipes for homemade eggnog, drinks with figs, and party drink recipes, a comparison of witbiers, a story on Greg Boehm of CocktailKingdom.com,  one on barleywine, another on bargain sparkling wine, fancy hot chocolate, and a travel piece on drinking in Hawaii.

Malt Advocate (Fall 2009) has stories on Japanese Whisky, Australian whisky, water in whisky, GlenDronach, and drinking in Bardstown, KY.

Men's Journal (November) has stories on California blended wines and good Canadian Whisky.

Food & Wine (November) has stories on ten Thanksgiving wines, new wine books, a recipe for mulled wine (to use with leftover bottles), American ciders, and $10 holiday wines.

Delta's in-flight magazine Sky's October issue has a round-up of wine and food festivals, and a big feature on visiting the world's best wine regions. 

Sunset (November) has a round-up of spirits new spirits distilleries in the west, lists their annual Wine Awards, and lists a recipe for kumquat digestif.

Everyday With Rachael Ray (November), in addition to the story I wrote on avoiding hangovers, has a few recipes for simple cocktails.

GQ (November) has a recipe for a 2:1 Martini.

Esquire lists recommended single-malts from Scotland's islands, Highlands, and Lowlands, and adds two new bars to its best bars list: One Flew South in the Atlanta airport, and Dutch Kills in Queens.

In ReadyMade (November/December) Alex Day shares sherry knowledge and there's a project on making a rolling bar out of an old trunk.

And the winner for best booze coverage this month goes to Conde Nast Traveler (November), with its this huge round-up of 38 bars in New Orleans' French Quarter. 

Glossy Booze: Big October Edition

Glossy Booze is a regular Alcademics feature in which I cover the liquor coverage in glossy magazines.

Bon Appetit (October)lists a recipe for the Highland's Fall from Peter Vestinos, available here. Also, a story on dry cider and one on dessert wines. In November St. John Frizell has a recipe for the coffee/rum drink Koffie Van Brunt.

Everyday With Rachael Ray (October) has a story on "gum cocktails"- not something you get at Tailor, but combining flavors of gum to make new flavors.

GQ (September) had a big feature on the six best drinking cities in the US. They were San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Portland (OR), Nashville, and New York.

Conde Nast Traveler has a list of three tropical island bars in the Bahamas, plus a recipe for the Goombay Smash.

7X7 (September) has a story on Rickhouse. In the October issue, Jordan Mackay writes about relocated NYC sommelier David Lynch. 

Men's Journal (October) list America's best beers here, and the top five beer towns here.

Sunset (October) has beer and food pairings for Octoberfest, and a story on green wine packaging.

Esquire has a recipe for the Grasshopper. Really!

Details lists some "really excellent canned beer,"and a few places in which to drink it.

And the winner for best drink coverage goes to Food & Wine- and they didn't even have any cocktail recipes. Their stories are:

• What sommeliers know best.
•  Understanding Oregon Pinot Noir country
• Wineries by the sea all over the world- France and Spain, US, Australia, Portugal, and South Africa.
• Wines for drinking, not overthinking
• American Wine Awards
• A preview of the F&W Wine Guide 2010
• How to be a smarter wine shopper
• Gruner Veltliner
• 50 classic wines to try
• 15 rules for wine and food pairings

Technique vs. Terroir

My wine knowledge is... limited, so maybe this happens all the time: A group of five winemakers in Oregon took grapes from five vineyards and each made wine from it. Now those wines are ready for release and you can buy them as a set (for $1250). The experiment explores the technique of the wine maker versus the terroir of the vineyard as each winemaker puts his stamp on the same set of grapes. Cool stuff, says me.

Willamette Valley, Oregon (July 22, 2009) - Five renowned Oregon winemakers have tapped five Willamette Valley vineyards to create 25 unique expressions of Oregon's signature Pinot Noir - these are the wines of the Cellar Crawl. Designed to explore how soil, geology and the winemaker's approach impacts the expression of wine, this collection of 25 Oregon Pinot Noirs will be unveiled at the annual International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) held in Oregon's Willamette Valley on July 24 - 26, and available for purchase as a set at the participating wineries.

In 2006, five winemaker friends - Terry and Ted Casteel (Bethel Heights Vineyard), Steve Doerner (Cristom Vineyards), Ken Wright (Ken Wright Cellars), Lynn Penner-Ash (Penner-Ash Wine Cellars) and Laurent Montalieu (Soléna Cellars) - picked fruit from the same five vineyards, with each winemaker creating their own barrel from each lot, then bottled and named it after their tasting group Cellar Crawl. Now, after three years, it's ready to be released.

"This is the first time that winemakers have joined forces and created a platform to help us better understand the influence that soil and individual style have on Oregon Pinot Noir," says Ted Casteel of Bethel Heights Vineyard. "This project is about education and transparency, so we're bringing it out of the cellar and making it available to the public."

Sommelier Smackdown in St. Helena

I don't often post about wine events but I do love pairing battles.

Sommelier Smackdown: The Rematch!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at The Martini House

Rob RENTERIA(Ravaging Rob)of Martini House vs. Chris BLANCHARD (Killer Chris) of Cuvee.

3 courses by Chef Todd HUMPRHRIES

RECEPTION 6:30  DINNER 7PM on the lawn. $65 / pp all inclusive of tax and tip

Guests will vote after each course, Sommelier selections and winner will be announced following.  Overall winner will be determined by highest number of total votes. 

Call for reservations and more information: 707.963.2233 ext. 1

Glossy Booze: Late June Edition

Glossy Booze is regular Alcademics feature; a round-up of spirits stories in magazines.

Details (June/July) has a story on punch and places to get it around the country, plus a small feature on Hauz Alpenz products. 

ReadyMade (June/July) has another story by Alex Day, this one on ice. Looks like some good advice on how to freeze and split a pan of ice.

Town and Country  (July) has a feature on new food and drink cookbooks for summer.

GQ (July) has three fizz recipes: the Ramos Gin Fizz, the Rum Fizz, and the Gin Fizz.

Mutineer (June/July) has a story on the movie Beer Wars, a feature on craft distillers of the Pacific Northwest, a big story on absinthe, a tour of Maker's Mark, and an interview with Max Riedel of Riedel glass.

Bon Appetit (July) has some recommended blanco tequilas, lists a recipe for the Strawberry Muddle (recipe: muddle strawberries. add prosecco),and a story on IPA beers. 

In Esquire (July), David Wondrich takes a break from writing about cocktails to tell us we don't drink enough champagne.

In Food and Wine (July), we have a recipe for Peach Sangria, a story on creating a wine list, a story on texture as a wine pairing guide, one on Argentinian wines, some recommended restaurants in which to drink wine, and the best beers for wine lovers.

Men's Journal (August) has a ton of booze coverage: recommendations for High West whiskey, Sam Adams Imperial White, and Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka, plus a story on four summer classic cocktails with a twist with recipes by Sean Muldoon of Belfast's Merchant Hotel, Chris Hannah or Arnaud's, Jamie Boudreau of Tini Bigs, and Jeffrey Mortenthaler of Clyde Common. There is also a recipe for an Heirloom Bloody Mary, and Jimmy Buffet recommends a drink that's just rum, coconut water, and a slice of lime.