In the war for a buzz, an important battle has been won

Affordable health care? Improving public education? Bah, those are unimportant things we’ll get around to fixing. But threaten to lower the alcohol content in Maker’s Mark, and America will fight you.

Last week, Maker’s Mark, makers of Maker’s Mark bourbon, said it would be temporarily diluting its product from 90 to 84 proof in order to keep up with soaring demand. That’s when the people fought back.

Even though the dilution was promised not to affect the taste, drinkers took to the internet, demanding their hootch stay at the same level. On Sunday, Maker’s Mark announced that they scuttled plans to dilute any more bottles.

Let’s stagger on to Jack Daniel’s, citizens!

Put down the bottle when seeking a job

As it turns out, you shouldn’t drink during a job interview.

That’s exactly what science tells us. Even though it improves your vocabulary, American bosses look down on you when you order alcohol while being interviewed–in a dinner setting, that is. If you’re having your job interview in the office conference room and you order a drink, your potential employer may think you are needy. Model workers bring their own sauce with them.

Of course, if you offer them some hootch, it’s certain you’ll get in their good graces.

Fruits of the poisonous tree

Men in Columbia are like men anywhere else, aside from the fact that they hang people in helicopters from time to time.

If you saw cases of beer left unattended at a city dump, what would you do? Would you go over and comfort the lonely bottles, letting them know it would all be OK? Would you rescue them, take them home and adopt them?

That’s exactly what two sanitation workers in Columbia did. Rescuing 50 of 700 cases of expired beer from the depths of abandonment at the dump. Now they might be charged with theft of city property.

FREE THE COLUMBIA TWO!

Isn’t it time you got a closer view of your carpet?

Do you like beer, but hate the way you have to drink several of them in order to get a proper buzz? Switch to liquor! Or stop drinking for a few days to lower your tolerance!

Or, you could pick up a case of BrewDog’s new Tactical Nuclear Penguin, it’s beer, it’s made in Scotland, and it’s being introduced here. Oh, and it’s also the new champ for highest alcohol by volume, with 32%. For those of you keeping score, that’s 64 proof, just shy of your favorite liquors. The previous record holder, Samuel Adams’ Utopias only has 24% ABV, or 48 proof.

Just in time for the weekend.

An alcohol stimulus package

Fresh off of the “St. Patrick’s Day season” as Guinness puts it, there’s some bad news out of Ireland. No, the violence hasn’t started up again–worse. The country’s alcohol sales are plummeting.

A recession and unemployment mean have hit Ireland’s economy hard, and that means everyone has less money to spend at the bar. This would make sense if it were any country but Ireland. Haven’t they read Angela’s Ashes? There’s always money for booze!

For us Americans, it means good things. We can go to Ireland and find some great deals there. Did you know they have Irish pubs in Ireland? It’s true! And those Irish pubs may have great drink specials going on because they need your money so badly.

What is this ‘Lowenbrau,’ anyway?

About 80 years ago, the U.S. was not allowed to drink. Special interest groups, coupled with women, convinced the government to ban alcohol. Unfortunately, laws that existed back then are still in effect in some states.

In Pennsylvania, some bars were raided for not having properly licensed beer. The problem: the names on the state’s registry of beers did not match the ones being sold, probably because of typographical errors or abbreviation. This meant that the bars had to stop selling certain suds, and the kegs were even confiscated.

If you want to make bar patrons cry, seize a keg in front of them. They’ll be crying in their lack of beer in no time.

In China, The Guys would be CEOs

A policeman in China was called a martyr after he died in what his captain said was the line of duty. As it turns out, he died after getting smashed. No, we’re not making fun of that.

What is funny is that this uncovers a culture of competitive drinking for business purposes in China. The culture, called ganbei, is how business is done in Red China. Businessmen meet for banquets to discuss matters, and try to out drink each other in order to get concessions from the other.

It’s so common that injuries and deaths are often classified as “workplace injuries.”

Alcohol makes the world your bed

Alcohol-induced sleep isn’t usually very deep, which is probably why you wake up tired. (You’ll have to ask Dr. Snee about that one.) However, some people are just deep sleepers. A French teenager is one of that fold.

It was there that a 19-year old got drunk, most likely off of wine or something. He got a little sleepy and decided to take a nap outside, his mistake was deciding to sleep on train tracks. As he slept between the tracks, a speeding train passed over him. The driver of the train saw him but was unable to stop the train for much longer. He did not wake up after the train passed over him.

“Roused by police and fire fighters who attended the scene, the young man gave a one-fingered salute before rolling over and going back to sleep.”

Sleep on, hero.

Yet another example of good science

Let’s be honest. Would you rather not remember last night, or not remember most of your life in your final years?

Pick up a drink. Do it right now. Because science tells us that alcohol may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. Also, it reduces the risk of dementia, which sounds like the old-timey term for Alzheimer’s, but for argument’s sake, we’ll say that they are two different afflictions. The point is, booze can save your brain.

The study followed over 3,000 senior citizens who drank moderately. They defined that as 14 drinks per week. However, if you have 14 drinks per night you just might be able to fight dementia and kill it before it even things about coming after you. So drink early, drink often.

Better dosed than dead

You may remember us telling you something about how alcohol is in fact really, really good for you, so much so that it seems to be common knowledge in the scientific community. We finally won the war on sobriety. Medicinal boozing became the norm.

But then, something changed.

According to the New York Times there is a rebellion amongst the teetotaler doctors of the world. They claim that the studies we all know do not show that alcohol is good for you, they just show that healthy people drink, along with other activities.

You hear that? Some sober killjoys are trying to tell you that drinking isn’t actually good for you, which we all know it is. These are probably the same people who don’t believe in evolution. But the best part is this: don’t worry, if you’re drinking that means you’re a healthy person all around. That’s more than can be said about those sober mongers.