Drink up and make merry

The following text is originally lifted from the trivia section of The Jakarta Post dated Monday, 21 January 2008.

~Compiled from various sources~

• There is a cloud a cloud of alcohol in outer space 10,000 light years from Earth.
• The Mayflower, well-known for taking the Pilgrims to the New World, ordinarily transported alcohol beverage between Spain and England.
• Johny Appleseed probably distributed apple seeds across the American frontier so that people could make fermented apple juice (“hard” cider) rather than eat apples
• Attendees of R&B, rap or hip-hop concerts are 94% more likely than the average person to drink champagne.
• Drinking alcohol in moderation is reported to reduce the risk of heart disease.
• A man in Florida, USA was arrested for drunk driving but was found innocent when he proved before a jury that the alcohol officers had smelled on his breath was a mixture of rubbing alcohol and gasoline that he had just used in a performance as a professional firebreather.
• The pressure in a bottle of champagne is about 90 pounds per square inch. That’s about three times the pressure in automobile tires.
• The soul of one famous vineyard in France is considered so precious that vineyard workers are required to scrape it from their shoes before they leave for home each day.
• White lightning is a name for illegally distilled spirits. All spirits are clear or “white” until aged in charred oak barrels. Moonshiners skip the aging process to reduce risk of arrest, hence the name of their product. Moonshining is profitable because the taxes on legally produced spirits are so high.
• It is impossible to create a beverage of over 18% alcohol by fermentation alone.
• The average number of grapes it takes to make a bottle of wine is 600.
• Cactus is the basis of tequila.
• White wine gets darker as it ages while red wine gets lighter.
• Sherry is the only wine that gets stronger with age.
• During WW2, a group of alpine soldiers stranded in mountain snows survived for an entire month on nothing but a cask of sherry.
• The leading moneymaker on most ocean cruise lines is listed under the heading of “Beverages”.
• The word “liquor” is prohibited on storefronts in some U.S. states.
• Liquor stores in North America are also called “package stores” because of laws requiring that alcohol containers be concealed in public by being placed in paper bags or packages.
• The region of the U.S. that consumes the least alcohol (commonly known as the “Bible Belt”) is also known by many doctors as Stroke Alley.
• It is estimated that the U.S. federal government takes in 14 times more in taxes on distilled spirits than producers of the products earn making them. That does not include what states and localities additionally take in taxes on the same products.
• There are 83 dry towns and villages in Alaska.
• Temperance activists, who strongly opposed the consumption of alcohol, typically consumed patent medicines that, just like whiskey, generally contained 40% alcohol.