Altering how we taste our food

What can you taste when you swirl a mouthful of malt whisky around your mouth? Peaty flavours, honey, sea salt? Talk to any whisky drinker and they'll be happy to discuss at length.

But it turns out that not all you are getting is down to your taste buds - or even your nose.

If you drink a glass of single malt in a room carpeted with real grass, accompanied by the sound of a lawnmower and birds chirping, and all bathed in green light, the whisky tastes "grassier".

Replace that with red lighting, curved and bulbous edges and tinkling bells and the drink tastes sweeter.

These studies are intriguing. On one hand, I am expecting the large food companies like Nestle to start just advertising the pizza on the box with only a shake of the cheapest chemicals possible inside. On the other, it pretty much is like brain synesthesia for your mouth without your knowledge. Sit back and just let it happen.

Happy 80th

Celebrate by watching the Ken Burns Prohibition documentary with a glass of scotch in hand. :)

Siblings Are Why You Drink

Children with faster verbal development may be more likely to have alcohol problems as adult, according to a new study....

In addition to the earlier talkers and readers drinking more, they also found that the more verbally-proficient group was four times as likely to get drunk at least once a month compared to their counterparts.

Though the behavior might sound alarming, the authors noted that the verbally-skilled twins' frequent drinking was not enough to categorize them with a drinking disorder. No connection was made between being the first speaker or reader and a propensity for alcohol addiction.

The study authors hypothesized that while higher intelligence may make people pause to think of the consequences, it may also make them more willing to try more risky things.

Also, verbal intelligence in particular makes people more social, and in fact, the study authors discovered that the earlier speakers and readers had more friends than the twins that had less verbal prowess. In turn, that could make them more likely to be in more social situations where there is alcohol.

Thanks Ja', for making sure I read fast by not waiting for me to finish a page before you turned it. Totally fair when you were only 4 years older. Also, does it count as social if I drink while knitting things for other people?

Use a French Press to add Flavor to your Beer

Many would say that Old Rasputin is the gold standard for Imperial Stouts. Adding in the aroma, and taste, of freshly ground coffee turns this beer into an alcoholic Americano. Boost the roastiness with a little smoked oak for a drink that's not for the faint of heart.

How to do it: Coarsely grind one tablespoon of your favorite coffee and add to a French press. Add 1/4 cup smoked oak pieces (from your local homebrew store or online. Pour 12-ounce bottle of Old Rasputin over the mix and let infuse for 3 minutes.

I'm not a beer person, so they all sound rather disgusting. But I love the possibilities. Can;t be worse than the ubiquitous pumpkin flavor in everything this time of year.

Former Drunks Make Unstoppable Runners

Many drunks won’t be swayed by the symbolism of a turned calendar page. But each year, plenty of chronic drinkers and struggling alcoholics figure that January is a chance for a fresh start. To them, I say run. You’re already pre-programmed to chew up the pavement—even tackle a marathon. In fact, you’ve spent a good chunk of your bleary-eyed, morally dubious days and nights developing the perfect toolbox: single-minded focus; endurance; tolerance for mental and physical distress; prowess at spending time alone; aptitude at navigating embarrassment....

Check out some race photos. You’ll see plenty of runners with painful grimaces on their faces, wild sweat-flattened hair, bloody nipples, shorts billowing up to show dimpled cheek, stained crotches and wet ass cracks. And often a gait that looks decidedly zombie-apocalyptic. There may be college-era pics of you with a pair of hairy balls sharpied on your forehead or with your skirt up over your head: You are the dark, sloppy star of family lore. Your tolerance for ridicule is high.

So that's my problem. I haven't gotten quite to full blown alcoholic yet, hence why I am such a terrible runner. Well, that or the inability to not trip and land on my face.

Whiskey Saves!

Alcohol doesn't tend to make you see more clearly, but in Denis Duthie's case a bottle of whisky literally saved his sight.

Mr Duthie, a catering tutor at New Plymouth's Western Institute of Technology, had been celebrating his parents' 50th wedding anniversary in June by having a few vodkas from a bottle his students had given him as a present.

When he walked into a bedroom in his home everything suddenly went black.

"I thought it had got dark and I'd missed out on a bit of time but it was only about half-past-three in the afternoon. I was fumbling around the bedroom for the light switch but ... I'd just gone completely blind."

Green Whiskey?

Scottish company Celtic Renewables is turning the byproduct waste from whiskey distillation into usable product, showing that there is a profitable method to eliminate the problems caused by normal production.

Here's how it works: To make Scotch whiskey, you take barley, separate out the sugar, add water and yeast, and ferment it. The result is similar to beer. The next step is to distill the alcohol from that beer in pots. Set it to age in wooden casks, and a few months later, you have whiskey.

The problem is that the process creates a lot of byproduct: First there are the remains of the barley, called draff. And when you distill the alcohol, you're left with a liquid called pot ale, which is hard to dispose of because it contains biological components that can acidify ecosystems, along with traces of copper that are leached from the pots. Celtic Renewables makes a soup out of the pot ale and draff. Then—through a fuel-making fermentation process that was developed during the leadup to World War I but fell out of favor when it couldn't compete with petroleum—the company converts the stuff into biobutanol fuel, animal feed, and acetone.

Paper Wine

A newly created paper booze holder that is biodegradable with a foil bladder, and takes less than 10% of the energy to produce? I'm in. I already love the wine bladders you can buy from camping stores, but hate they are made from plastic, so this is a wonderful alternative.

Things I Want #12,970

It's just so.....pretty. And cheap! Christmas present for me!

Cuore by Liviana Osti

Two glass carafes shaping a human heart when joined together. The heart is a reminder for the generally underestimated but essential role health plays in our lives.
In order to prevent cardiovascular and blood pressure diseases we have to start with the root of the problem, our daily consume of food and beverage.
A wine decanter is built together with a water carafe. A half half coloured mix of red and white. Red wine stands for low pressure, water stands for high pressure.
The organic heart shape has been developed into two different, stand-alone objects according to the natural division of ventricles.

Or, if you are like me, one would be full of red wine and the other carafe full of scotch.

Whiskey Power!

It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland's best-known distilleries.

Contracts have recently been awarded for the construction of a biomass combined heat and power plant at Rothes in Speyside that by 2013 will use the by-products of the whisky-making process for energy production.

Drams!!

Final choices:
1981 Glenfarclas Family Cask
Nikka Pure Malt Black
Monkey Shoulder Blended Scotch Whisky
Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey

I have had Colorado Whiskey but am too cheap to buy a full bottle, and the Glenfarclas is for my 30th birthday. I still love this idea.

Drams for Sale!

Master of Malt offers a sample dram (3cl) to purchase for many of their spirits. Whereas there is no way I could afford a Glenfarclas 1981 Family Cask bottle for my 30th birthday this year, I can afford a sample in honor of my birth year. Great way to taste different types of whiskeys and scotchs (and a few vodkas and gins) that otherwise would require laying out a lot of money in hopes you like the flavor.

Balance

My brother-in-law finds my deafness hilarious. Really, he finds that my entire family is rather freakishly hilarious. Last weekend he amused himself with an app that plays out sound at different frequencies from the bottom to the top of the spectrum. Off and on he would turn the program on to watch my (or occasionally his wife) drop whatever we had in hand to hold our ears and yell at him to turn the app off.

Over the years, I've gone deaf. Kind of. Last time I had my hearing checked, the doctor told me that due to my attention to detail, diction and enunciation, I was above the threshold of needing a hearing aid, however, I have around a 20% loss in normal levels of sound.

However, I can hear dog whistles. Growing up, my sisters and I would scream and throw tantrums when our mother would take us to Sears or the Post Office, as she seemed to think we just had an aversion to those very specific places of business rather than to the reason behind our complaints. In reality, both locations had computer equipment that sent out a high pitched noise that drove us nuts. It was like a pre-Mosquito alarm system.

So today, I read an article that says hearing loss may be an early indicator of dementia. Then I read another that alcohol may deter dementia.

What I am understanding from all of this is simple. If I drink, my likelihood of dementia goes down; however, being in the normal loud places that decreases ability to sound/increases deafness increases the likelihood.

If I just equal the two, I should be safe, right?

I Drink Therefore I Exercise

"Results. For women, current drinkers exercise 7.2 more minutes per week than abstainers. Ten extra drinks per month are associated with 2.2 extra minutes per week of physical activity. When compared with current abstainers, light, moderate, and heavy drinkers exercise 5.7, 10.1, and 19.9 more minutes per week. Drinking is associated with a 10.1 percentage point increase in the probability of exercising vigorously. Ten extra drinks per month are associated with a 2.0 percentage point increase in the probability of engaging in vigorous physical activity. Light, moderate, and heavy drinking are associated with 9.0, 14.3, and 13.7 percentage point increases in the probability of exercising vigorously. The estimation results for men are similar to those for women."

via The Consumerist via Gawker via IM conversation.

My favorite charity with my almost favorite drink

A 64-year-old single malt Scotch whisky in a unique crystal decanter has sold for a record price of almost £300,000 at an auction in New York.

The decanter, crafted by famous French designer Lalique, holds 1.5l of the rare The Macallan whisky.

All the proceeds will be given to the clean-water group charity: water.

On a complete side note, if you need to pick a charity to ever give money to, choose charity: water. They have a great cause and need all the help they can get. Not that I can sway you, but I've given to them for years, and they deserve everything you can give.

Why I'll live longer....but not the longest

But even after controlling for nearly all imaginable variables - socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on - the researchers (a six-member team led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas at Austin) found that over a 20-year period, mortality rates were highest for those who had never been drinkers, second-highest for heavy drinkers and lowest for moderate drinkers.

Also, in other booze-related stuffs, vodka under a microscope:

Standing By My Tastes

They found that each vodka brand differed in its concentration of ethanol hydrates. Vodka drinkers could express preference for a particular structure. Drinkers actually may be perceiving this internal structure or structurability of vodka, rather than taste in a traditional sense, as the scientists note in their report.

Perhaps this is why I have always extremely disliked Grey Goose......

Damn Straight

"Scotch whisky is made from barley and the morning dew on angel's nipples."

"Did you ever want to set someone's head on fire, just to see what it looked like? Did you ever stand in the street and think to yourself, I could make that nun go blind just by giving her a kiss? Did you ever lay out plans for stitching babies and stray cats into a Perfect New Human? Did you ever stand naked surrounded by people who want your gleaming sperm, squirting frankincense, soma and testosterone from every pore? If so, then you're the bastard who stole my drugs Friday night. And I'll find you. Oh, yes."

Cheers, Warren.

..via Nag on the Lake.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Let us all show our pride in taking over the heathen Irish by The Church by drinking. :)