Thursday’s ad is another one for Falstaff, and is also by the well-known illustrator J.F. Kernan. This one shows a trio of men fishing from a boat in a river. It looks like one of the guys just hooked a big one, but looks none too sure of his ability to reel him in.
Today’s infographic is a yet another chart of standard drinks in Australia. It’s a little simpler than yesterdays, created for Drug Info by the Australian Department of Health and Ageing.
Here’s an interesting, if long, commercial for Kirin beer that features some famous martial artists. I have no idea what’s going on for most of the three-minute video, or why they count to 39 throughout the story. Luckily, you don’t have to understand it to enjoy it.
Wednesday’s ad is for Falstaff, from some time in the late 1940s or 50s, I’m guessing. I think it’s most likely the original artwork for ad ad, and it’s signed by the well-known illustrator J.F. Kernan, who passed away in 1958. Kernan was also known for his many Saturday Evening Post covers, similar to Norman Rockwell. This one shows a hunter out in the woods, reaching for his rifle, which was resting on top of a case of Falstaff beer, as a deer runs by in the background.
Today’s infographic is a chart of standard drinks in Australia. It’s from Street Beat’s guide to alcohol use in Australia.
Here’s an interesting video on craft beer by a Jeremy Williams entitled Craft Beer — A Hopumentary. What’s cool about it is that it features Ron Lindenbusch from Lagunitas, Craig and Beth from City Beer Store, Andy French from Southern Pacific Brewing, Zeitgeist, and homebrewer Nathan Oyler. My favorite factoid: craft beer represents 7% of the market, but employs 50% of the employees in the industry.
Tuesday’s ad is for Molson, from 1957. The Canadian ad shows two couples watching sports on television — because it’s Canada they’re watching hockey, of course. With the “complete’s the picture” tagline, part of the ad is framed, so that one of the men can reach his long arm through that frame to reach for another bottle of Molson.
Maybe it’s my own skepticism, but this is setting off all of the Amway/Infomercial/Snake Oil Salesman alarm bells. On Indiegogo — similar to Kickstarter — someone has launched a project for the Ziblee Beverage Pleasure Enhancer, which they describe as follows. “Briefly stir your favorite adult beverage with the Ziblee and be amazed at the improvement in flavor and smoothness.” Uh, huh. Sure. Convince me.
Here’s what it looks like. To me, it looks roughly like a honey dipper made out of a metal spring with an aluminum handle. But no, the spring is made from “the finest stainless steel [they] could find. Surgical grade stainless steel,” no less.
But actually it’s the pitch, and the fact that there’s a special crystal inside the wand, that makes is sound like it’s coming from a snake oil salesman.
The Ziblee is an energetically-charged wand-like device that, when stirred gently for six or seven seconds in a glass of wine, spirits, coffee or juice, liberates all the flavor of the beverage and smooths the taste significantly. Just like award-winning vintners, connoisseurs and sommeliers who have used the Ziblee, you will be astounded at the difference it makes. It really does “make the cheap stuff taste like the good stuff…and the good stuff taste even better!”
Beer is conspicuously absent, but apparently every other alcohol on the planet, along with coffee and juice, will magically be improved by a few stirs. How does this “magic” work? Here’s their explanation.
The Ziblee is not an ‘aerator’ and it doesn’t have magnets. It’s a totally new technology that uses the subtle energy of frequencies. Those frequencies impact the beverage on a molecular level releasing its full flavor and smoothness. There is no chemical change in the beverage at all, nothing dissolves, nothing is added or taken away. It really is a quantum energy thing and there are only two ways to know that something wonderful has happened to your drink. The first is to look at the molecular structure of the drink under an electron microscope, which we’ve done — but honestly, it’s not that easy to do. The second is a far better option…taste it! Do a variety of taste tests. All in the name of scientific research of course! This is absolutely the most fun you can have using quantum physics!
It works through specially selected natural quartz crystal. Due to their balanced and set formation, certain crystals have the ability to tune into the vibrations of what is around them. People have known that since ancient times. Today what we’re able to do with the Ziblee is ‘tune’ the crystal with a proprietary combination of frequencies. When the super-charged Ziblee connects with your beverage it harmonizes the frequencies to gently reveal the remarkable story within every glass. It makes every sip, every drink, every conversation more pleasurable.
Dizzy yet? Toward the end of this new ageiness, they claim that it “works with all adult beverages, making them taste smooth, expensive,” but finally address beer. “With carbonated beverages like beer, soda and champagne the Ziblee tends to make them go flat, so don’t ruin your drink. We’re not sure why that happens, but it does. We dumped many a beer down the drain trying to figure it out.” It’s funny that they don’t know why it happens, suggesting to me that they don’t really know anything about their claim that it does work on non-carbonated drinks, except water.
So what do you think? Magic or hokum? I’m sure it’s not that simply swirling your drink makes it taste differently. That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Who would fall for that?
Today’s infographic is courtesy of the Karl Strauss Brewery in San Diego, who created this Beer Myths Debunked infographic.
Click here to see the infographic full size.
As I inch closer to senior citizenship — gallop really — few things cheese me off more than continually having to prove I’m old enough to buy a drink. It’s been 33 years since I became an adult (36 really, but they changed the definition from 18 to 21 while I was in between the two). Of course, what it means to be an adult is quite the loaded question. The standard responsibilities, obligations and rights include voting, the ability to enter into contracts, marry and several others, including of course, drinking alcohol. The fact that these standards vary from nation to nation, and culture to culture, should convince you that they’re a product of each individual community, and really ought to reflect the values of the populace. And once upon a time, they did, but in my lifetime those values have been hijacked by a minority of fanatics who are committed to forcing their own values on the rest of us.
While the common sense argument that fighting for one’s country should include at least the ability to vote lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, the reverse of that argument was used to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21. People 18 to 20 could be counted on to protect our freedoms — and die for their country — but neo-prohibitionists argued that they weren’t ready to enjoy a beer. A specious argument to be sure, but they managed to tie raising the drinking age to federal highway funds, and no state could afford to remain sensible.
But for anti-alcohol fanatics even that wasn’t enough, it was just a start. And neo-prohibitionists ever since have been working tirelessly to tighten the noose on all manner of restrictions on alcohol. I remember when I was in my early 20s, signs at cash registers warned that if you look 25 or older, be prepared to show your I.D. By the time I was in my 30s, the signs had changed, too, saying roughly the same thing but making 30 the threshold. As I’ve aged, the needle keeps moving. A few years ago, Tennessee passed a law that every person, no matter how old, has to prove they’re at least 21, even if they have one foot in the grave, no exceptions.
People invariably tell me I should be flattered to look so young, and chuckle as they say it, as if I should be amused. Well, I’m not. It has nothing to do with youth. It has to do with control, and having to keep proving I’m an adult is a ridiculous indignity that grows more insulting with each passing year. We live in an increasingly Kafkaesque world where as the older I look, the more I have to prove it. As late as my 40s, I was refused service because I left my wallet at home, despite there being little doubt I was more than twice the age of majority. It’s become the modern equivalent of having to “show us your papers” (say it with a thick German accent), a sad cliche become real. Adulthood has responsibilities and obligations, of course, but it should also have a few benefits, like not having to carry our “papers” with us wherever we go.
But now Somerset, the county in southwest England, has taken this absurdity one step farther. According to a story in the This is Somerset newspaper — a Grandfather, 77, falls foul of shop’s booze rules — an elderly gentlemen was refused his purchase of beer because he was shopping with his teenage grandson. Apparently, the overzealous cashier thought the 77-year old man was buying beer for the teenager, but even after he confirmed they were related, the sale was still refused. He sent his grandson outside, but the cashier still wouldn’t budge. Commenters to the story insist that she was right to refuse the sale because that’s what the law says. And that’s probably correct, but it’s the law that’s wrong. We have to stop trying to make a perfect society through such absurd legislation. When an elderly man can’t shop with his grandchild and buy something he’s legally entitled to purchase because he could potentially turn around and do something illegal with it, that’s going too far. That’s trying to fix a perceived problem by creating a different problem for many more people than were affected by the original problem. But this is the neo-prohibitionist strategy in a nutshell. They want to make it as difficult as possible for as many people as possible. It’s using a bazooka to kill a fly. It’s about punishing everyone who drinks, not about keeping alcohol away from minors.
And so neo-prohibitionists insist that 4/5th of the adult population, or more, has to suffer on the off chance a 16-year old might get his hands on a beer. That’s not what it should mean to be an adult in any society.