Getting drunk in colonial America

A Toast to Your Health

Toasting, or ‘drinking healths,’ was a longstanding tradition in English culture. The act of honoring another and drinking to their health was a way for English drinkers to combine a display of respect with the consumption of alcohol – certainly a win-win situation for those who favored the practice. The act itself, while popular among the English, didn’t always gain favor from outside observers.


Aiming for whiskey perfection

An article by Wayne Curtis for The Atlantic takes a look at The New Science of Old Whiskey.

In April 2006, a tornado struck Warehouse C at the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. In the aftermath, the building looked like a diorama: part of the roof and one wall had been artfully removed to reveal the 25,000 barrels stacked inside. Miraculously, not a single one of those barrels was damaged.

Repairing the warehouse took several months, and during that time the barrels on the upper floors were exposed to rain, heat, and sun. Mark Brown, Buffalo Trace’s president and CEO, joked at the time that the distillery should sell the whiskey as “tornado-surviving bourbon.”

It turned out to be no joke. The barrels were opened about five years later (the liquor inside had then aged for nine to 11 years) and, says Brown, “the darnedest thing is, when we went to taste the whiskey, it was really good. I mean really good.”

Go read about the new era of whiskey: science, data, testing and tasting.


Cross Dublin without passing a pub

Path across Dublin without passing a pub

It is possible to cross Dublin without passing a pub.

In Ulysses, James Joyce mused that “a good puzzle would be to cross Dublin without passing a pub”. No-one’s really sure if it was possible, and Dubliners have always felt proud that it was not straight forward. The traditional Irish way to ‘solve’ this puzzle is to walk across Dublin, and call into every pub in the way and have a pint. This way you never actually pass a pub.

What problems can’t be solved by the internet?