I do enjoy a good cocktail every now and then. Perhaps it’s the fact that the practice of making drinks is called mixology – which sounds like some sort of potion-brewing alchemy to me – that lends it such a mysterious and magical flair. A good cocktail strikes a delicate balance which can be very difficult to achieve. A cocktail can be incredibly complex, consisting of multiple ingredients, with each ingredient having it’s own subtle flavors and peculiarities. Temperature is vital to a good drink, as is the method with which each ingredient is handled. Indeed, the perfect cocktail, served correctly and in the right environment, can be, in my opinion, a life-altering experience. Which is why the subject of today’s Trivia Tuesday is…

BOOZE

Each molecule of alcohol is less than a billionth of a meter long and consists of a few atoms of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen.

Fermentation (that magical thing that creates alcohol out of sugar) is involved in the production of many foods, including bread (bread “rises” as it ferments), sauerkraut, coffee, black tea, cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, pickles, cottage cheese, chocolate, vanilla, ginger, ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce.

As Magellan prepared to sail around the world in 1519, he spent more on sherry than on weapons.

The Mayflower, well-known for bringing the Pilgrims to the New World, was normally used to transport alcoholic beverage between Spain and England.

The Manhattan cocktail (whiskey and sweet vermouth) was invented by Dr. Iain Marshall for a banquet honoring hosted by Winston Churchill’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill.

The national anthem of the US, the “Star-Spangled Banner,” was written to the tune of a drinking song.

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the US, stated that “It has long been recognized that the problems with alcohol relate not to the use of a bad thing, but to the abuse of a good thing.”

I've racked my brain trying to come up with a witty caption... oh, well.

The peculiar (yet comforting) shape of the shallow champagne glass is purported to have originated with Marie Antoinette. It is rumored that the glass was first formed from wax molds made of her breasts, though the validity of this fact is debatable, in part because paintings of Marie Antoinette’s depict her as having, well… let’s just say that the glass would have taken quite a bit more champagne to fill it up. Marie Antoinette did, in fact, have two milk bowls made from wax molds of her breasts and she also had a passion for champagne, which is probably how the rumor started.

Drinking lowers rather than raises the body temperature. There is an illusion of increased heat because alcohol causes the capillaries to dilate and fill with more warm blood.

There is a cloud of alcohol in outer space with enough alcohol to make four trillion-trillion drinks., though it maybe a little out-of-the-way; it’s 10,000 light years from Earth. Also, it’s methanol and, while technically a type of alcohol, it’s not the kind that makes you feel smarter. That’s called ethanol. Methanol is poisonous.

On a personal note, my favorite drink is Sambvca (an anise-flavored Italian liqour) and I like to get a shot of it whenever I play a gig somewhere with a bar. Last weekend, after a gig, I asked the bartender for a shot of the stuff and he replied, “Sorry, we don’t have any and, even if we did, I don’t have the means to serve it correctly.”

This sparked my interest  as I’d assumed that I’d been drinking it the right way for many years. So I asked him what the correct way was and he responded thusly:

“The correct way to serve Sambvca is in a brandy snifter,” he said, “with three roasted coffee beans placed inside, having briefly been set on fire and then carefully extinguished.”

Wow. Eccentric? Check. Pretentious? Check. Fire? That’s a big check. I foresee a Flaming Sambvca review in HokeBlarg’s near future. Tootle, pip!

P.S. Check out this fairy-juicing machine over at Instructables. Yes, you read that right.