Do You Know What Day It Is?

It's National Bourbon Day!

Drink up!

Jobs the World Doesn't Need

"Cicerone". That is a "beer professional". Yes, there is such a thing, and you can be certified as one. You can become a "certified beer server"!

In my day, the "beer professional" was called a "bartender" or, if he owned the joint, a "saloon-keeper".

But no, now we have hoity-toity beers and professionals to tell you the merits of each beer.

My one tip about drinking beer: Make sure that the first two or three are good beers. After that, you can switch to Naragansett, or whatever the locally-produced industrial slop happens to be, because you won't care.

("Cicerone"... sounds like somebody from Cicero. Which was were a lot of the high-class mobsters used to live, back in the day.)

To Drink Booze is to be Civilized

Drinking alcohol not only predates things such as literacy and nations, it may have been the thing that sparked the creation of civilization, if not humanity. People first domesticated grains not for making bread, but for making beer.

The Brand of Yellow Alcohol-Infused Horse Piss You Drink Doesn't Matter

SABMiller's board will review its $107 billion merger deal with Anheuser Busch InBev once all regulatory approvals have been secured, its chairman said on Thursday.

The two companies received approval on Wednesday from U.S. antitrust regulators, after they agreed to sell assets and preserve competition from independent craft brewers. The companies are now waiting for China's approval.

Booze Review

Skyy Raspberry-Infused Vodka.

"Vile" doesn't even begin to describe it. It's probably too weak to use for stripping paint or cleaning parts.

Getting Bombed in the Future

The Shockfrost.

The Right Bourbon for the Justified Finale Tonight?

At least the name fits:

Apparently, it's decent booze.

Diluting the Product

Maker's Mark is now diluting its product so they can sell more of it.

I think they're insane. They'll get, what, a seven percent increase in their inventory by stepping on their bourbon at a cost of public relations disaster? Here's a radical idea: If demand outstrips supply, try raising your prices, guys! That's what capitalists do, you know, "free market" and all that?

90 proof to 84 proof doesn't sound like a lot, but 80 proof is the lower limit for bourbon produced for domestic consumption by Federal law.*

Bridget Magnus suggests that Evan Williams is a good bourbon for its price. An old bar-owner told me that she used Ten-High for her well bourbon, but that was before they went from being a straight bourbon to a blended bourbon.**

Reducing the quality so you can sell more of it is a pretty bone-headed move.
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* If exported, it could be recycled antifreeze, for all the Feds care.
** On the other hand, if you're going to use it for drinks like bourbon-and-coke, who the hell cares?

A National Catastrophe

No, not ours. Russia's. Vodka is very cheap in Russia, which is one of the reasons why 500,000 or more Russians die each year from alcohol. The Russian government is showing signs of being concerned about it.

Good luck with that. Drunks are not politically active, a trade-off that the various Russian governments have been willing to make for centuries. But now, they may have no choice if they are going to avoid a crash of their population.