Drinking like Mad Men

Some folks from the web magazine Double X wondered what it would be like to drink as much in the workplace as the characters do on Mad Men. So they spent the day getting hammered and tried to do some work. The results are somewhat different than on the show.

This short blog post by Sasha Frere-Jones

This short blog post by Sasha Frere-Jones about rock show patron drink tipping practices is impossible to excerpt...lots of lovely little bits. Ok, twist my arm:

When Chromeo played, their crowd drank house vodka and Budweiser. Didn't tip. Some of them did what I'll call the slide-backs. They put a dollar down on the bar, wait until you turn your back, then palm their buck and walk away. Classy. When your night starts out with "What's your cheapest drink?" that's also not good."

Whiskey enthusiast, reacting to 2400 bottles of antique

Whiskey enthusiast, reacting to 2400 bottles of antique Jack Daniel's possibly being poured down the drain because of unlicensed sales: "Punish the person, not the whiskey."

A surprisingly non-exhaustive list of martini drinks

Vanilla-tini (vanilla vodka)
Espresso-tini (coffee liqueur + espresso)
Key Lime-tini (key lime)
Valen-tini (tequila rose)
Pome-tini (pomegranate)
Raspberry-tini (raspberry)
Nutty-tini (amaretto + hazelnut liqueur)
Crescendo-tini (at the orchestra)
Moe-tini (at Moe's Restaurant)
Franklin-tini (for Ben Franklin's 300th birthday)
Tut-tini (King Tut exhibition)
Mex-tini (orange vodka + tequila)
Ginger-tini (grapefruit + ginger + pomegranate)
Spa-tini (at the spa)
Blue Glow-tini (with glowing ice cubes)
Free-tini (no charge)
Champagne-tini (champagne)
Pineapple-tini (pineapple)
Sex-tini (Asian sex tonic + x-rated vodka)
Flu-tini (vodka + cold medicine)
Apple-tini (apple)
Red Lobster Butter-Tini (butterscotch schnapps + half and half + Bailey's)
Bikini-tini (low calorie)
Fire-tini (jalapenos)
K-tini (sauerkraut)
Caramel Apple Pie-tini (applesauce + caramel syrup)
Red Hot Santa-tini (chili peppers + whipped cream)
Fall-tini (apple cider)
Insomnia-tini (energy drink)
Jello-tini (lime Jello)
Peep-tini (Peeps candy)
Diamond-tini (1.06 carat diamond)

Time to lower the drinking age? "The

Time to lower the drinking age? "The age at highest risk for an alcohol-related auto fatality is 21, followed by 22 and 23, an indication that delaying first exposure to alcohol until young adults are away from home may not be the best way to introduce them to drink."

Park Smith is no ordinary wine collector...

Park Smith is no ordinary wine collector...he's got 65,000 bottles in a cellar measuring 8,000 square feet.

Is it worth paying $700 for a bottle

Is it worth paying $700 for a bottle of wine? Well worth it, says Slate's wine columnist, for the right bottle. "My father took a sniff of his glass, and he immediately registered a look of shock that called to mind the expression on Michael Spinks' face when Mike Tyson first landed a glove on him in their 1988 title fight. Unlike Spinks, however, my father managed to remain upright. I took a sip of the wine and quickly pronounced the same verdict I had rendered 20 months earlier: 'Holy shit.'"

Tremble funnyman Todd Levin dons the Non-Expert's

Tremble funnyman Todd Levin dons the Non-Expert's hat over at The Morning News to explain how to buy wine. "FANCY SERIF FONT + PARCHMENT LABEL + SOMETHING YOU KIND OF REMEMBERED FROM THE MOVIE SIDEWAYS + $12-$16 PRICE TAG = SUCCESS"

Top 100 wines of 2006 according to Wine Spectator. (via lists 2006)

Top 100 wines of 2006 according to Wine Spectator. (via lists 2006)

Frozen beer tricks

I learned something terrific yesterday: if you take a really cold but still liquid beer out of the freezer and open it, the beer will freeze within seconds. The freezing trick also works if instead of opening the beer, you give the unopened bottle a sharp rap. The reasons I've found online for why the trick works varies slightly for the two cases. According to Daryl Taylor's site for science teachers, opening the bottle changes the pressure in the bottle and thus lowers the temperature:

The sealed bottle's envoronment has a specific volume, pressure, and temperature. By changing one, you are necessarily affecting the others. The chilled liquid has a smaller temperature, esentially the same volume, thus a smaller smaler pressure. This is, of cousre, according to the basic gas-law, PVNERT. Better known as PV=nRT. Even though the internal pressure has decreased, it is still far greater than the pressure outside the container, namely one atmosphere. Upon opening, the pressure inside drastically plunges as it tries to equalize with the atmosphere. This rapid decrease in P corresponds to a rapid decrease in T, since the V is essentially the same. This rapid drop in temperature of a liquid that is NEAR freezing actually plunges the liquid into a frozen state.

Not sure I completely buy this...does the ideal gas law work for liquids? I can see that the small amount of gas in the neck of the bottle would decrease in pressure and thus decrease in temperature and that might be enough to spur the liquid into freezing. For a better answer for both cases, I consulted the internet's all-seeing oracle, Ask Metafilter. This comment gives a succinct answer:

The beer is below the freezing temperature, but there is not enough contamination for the ice to form. The bubbles of carbon dioxide released when the bottle is hit act as nuclei for ice crystal growth in the supercooled beer. Same thing happens in reverse when water is microwaved in a smooth container but won't boil until hit.

This more scientific discussion of unfreezable water provides more evidence of what may be going on: supercooling effects, the carbon dioxide in solution hindering freezing (osmotic depression of freezing point), and hydration factors. Anyway, wicked cool! Supercooled beer!

Update: If you require visual proof, check out these two videos of beer freezing after it's been opened. Here's a video with water...so fast! (via digg)

Scientists in the UK have quantified the

Scientists in the UK have quantified the beer goggle effect. (via cd)

Winerd (wine + nerd, get it?) is a

Winerd (wine + nerd, get it?) is a board game that involves wine tasting and looks like a cross between Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, and Asshole.

Interview with Sidney Frank, the guy who

Interview with Sidney Frank, the guy who brought Jagermeister to the US in a big way and sold his Grey Goose vodka brand to Bacardi for more than $2 billion.

Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage's A History

Steven Shapin reviews Tom Standage's A History of the World in 6 Glasses, a "social life of beverages". Standage is one of my favorite technology/culture writers; he wrote about the telegraph in The Victorian Internet.

Steve makes prison wine out of moldy

Steve makes prison wine out of moldy bread, ketchup, grape juice, raisins, garbage bags, and tube socks. "It's hard to believe this started out as a bag of fruit snacks and grape juice. Yet somehow these ingredients went from sweet and child-like to harsh and alcoholic quicker than Lindsay Lohan."

In defense of drinking expensive wine

In defense of drinking expensive wine.

This review of Per Se mentions their non-alcoholic wine pairings

This review of Per Se mentions their non-alcoholic wine pairings. "With each course, we were given a beverage - ranging from grape juice to steamed milk - which complimented the tastes in the dish. Libby's 'Red Rice and Beans' was completed by a lime margarita. My foie gras with a gossamer grape juice that was finer than most wines."

A guide for the un-initated to buying

A guide for the un-initated to buying Guinness in an Irish pub.