114,OOO Beers Hijacked
MISSISSAUGA, CANADA—Two tractor-trailers carrying 70,000 cans and 44,000 bottles of Moosehead Lager were stolen from a transport company’s facility in Mississauga, Ontario. The retail value of the load is $200,000.
This is the second time in three years that Moosehead has been hit with a major beer heist. In August 2004, a truck containing 50,000 cans of Moosehead Lager bound for Mexico was stolen. Only 14,000 of the cans were ever found.
Vodka Defeats Poison, Saves Life
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA—Australian doctors kept an Italian tourist alive by feeding him vodka through an intravenous drip for three days.
The 24-year-old man, who had ingested poison in an apparent suicide attempt, was treated while in a coma. Doctors set up the drip after running out of medicinal alcohol, used as an antidote to the poison. He had been taken to hospital in northern Queensland after drinking anti-freeze.
“The patient was drip-fed about three standard drinks an hour for three days in the intensive care unit,” Dr Todd Fraser said.
Medical staff said the patient had made a full recovery, and the hangover had worn off by the time he woke up.
Post-Workout Beer Better Than Water
GRANADA, SPAIN—A beer after playing a game of football, a long run, or a strenuous round of golf can be good for the body, scientists say. Spanish researchers say beer can help someone who is dehydrated retain liquid better than water.
Professor Manuel Garzon, of Granada University, also claimed the bubbles in beer help to quench the thirst and that its carbohydrate content can help to replace lost calories.
In the study, a group of students were subjected to strenuous exercise. Half were given a pint of beer, while the others received the same amount of water. The hydration effect in those who drank beer shown to be slightly better.
Juan Antonio Corbalan, a cardiologist who worked formerly with Real Madrid football players and Spain’s national basketball team, said beer has the perfect profile for rehydration after strenuous exercise.
Liquor Good for Lungs
LOS ANGELES—There is already considerable evidence that a daily dose of alcohol helps the heart. Now, new findings suggest the same may be true for lung function.
In a recent study, doctors at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in California found two glasses of alcohol per day helped prevent lung diseases like asthma or emphysema. The same was true even for smokers.
$60K Forked Over for Rare Scotch
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND—A 157-year-old whisky was auctioned for more $60,000, setting a world record auction price of a bottle of Scotch.
The Bowmore single malt, bottled in 1850, was bought to an anonymous telephone bidder, beating out the Bowmore distillery itself.
The whisky, which was sold on behalf of a private owner, is the oldest known bottle of Bowmore in existence. The sale came despite the fact that the bottle’s cork had dropped into the whisky.
Surge Creates Booze Boom in Baghdad
BAGHDAD, IRAQ — It’s Thursday night, the end of the Iraqi workweek, and Fami Ameen is scrambling in his crowded Assassin’s Gate liquor store as customers clamor for everything from beer and whiskey to ouzo and arak, the popular local alcohol.
Call Ameen an unexpected beneficiary of the “surge.” For decades, Iraq had a reputation as a modern, secular society that liked to drink and knew how to party, from wild hotel discotheques to genteel members-only social clubs. But after the fall of President Saddam Hussein, extremists unleashed waves of firebombings against liquor stores, even killing owners, because alcohol is forbidden under Islamic law.
Just a year ago, Iraqis’ taste for alcohol, and the businesses that sated it, were written off as a casualty of the country’s new Islam-dominated order.
But violence in Baghdad has dropped in recent months under the U.S. military’s security crackdown. And although many stores are still shuttered, their faded Carlsberg awnings caked with dirt, the booze business has rebounded, as Iraqis negotiating the gulf between their faith and their proclivities strike a delicate balance, discreetly traveling from all over the city, and even other provinces, to the remaining liquor shops.
“People were reluctant to make the trip before the past six months, but now they are encouraged with the somewhat alleviated security,” Ameen said. “My wish is that the trend would continue, and we could go back to the prewar levels of distribution—perhaps even more.”
Some tipplers are particularly happy that the dry spell may be over. A construction worker and Sadr City resident, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition he not be named, told of how he was beaten last year by the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, after his brother complained to militia members about his drinking.
Now that the Iraqi army has supplanted the Mahdi fighters, he said, he no longer has to hide his liquor under his seat when driving into his neighborhood.
“The situation is now better than before — I carry the alcohol in a black plastic bag and no one cares what I have in the plastic bag,” the 47-year-old said. “I always drink, even at my work, at home at night, and even in the morning. I will never stop until the Judgment Day.”
New Device Chills Beer in Seconds
LONDON—A 22-year-old inventor, Kent Hodgson, has found a way to almost instantly chill a beverage without using ice. His relatively simple idea uses liquid CO2 to turn a warm beverage into a cold one within seconds.
The small device, called Huski, is slightly larger than a pen and powered by a common CO2 canister. When inserted into a glass it chills the beer in seconds, eliminating the need to pre-chill the beer in a cooler or refrigerator. A single canister of CO2 will chill about a case of beer.
Hodgson is in the process of patenting his invention, and expects to retail it for about $50.
