Cartoons Archives - Brookston Beer Bulletin

Beer Birthday: Homer Simpson

May 12, 2019 By Jay Brooks 1 Comment

Today is the birthday of Homer J. Simpson (May 12, 1956- ). At least that’s the agreed upon date, which comes from episode 16 in Season 4, entitled “Duffless,” which originally aired February 18, 1993. In the episode, Homer loses his driver’s license when he gets a DUI and there’s a scene where his license is voided by a judge. Eagle-eyed fans were able to freeze the frame and see that his date of birth listed on the identification card was May 12, 1956.

Here’s one biography of Homer, this one from the IMDb:

Homer (b.May 12, 1956) was raised on a farm by his parents, Mona and Abraham Simpson. In the mid-1960s, while Homer was between nine and twelve years old, Mona went into hiding following a run-in with the law. Homer attended Springfield High School and fell in love with Marge Bouvier in 1974. Marge became pregnant with Bart in 1979, while Homer was working at a miniature golf course. The two were wed in a small wedding chapel across the state line, From there they spent their wedding reception alone at a truck stop, and the remainder of their wedding night at Marge’s parents’ house. After failing to get a job at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer left Marge to find a job by which he could support his family. He briefly worked at a taco restaurant called the Gulp n’ Blow, until Marge found him and convinced him to return. As a result, Homer confronted Mr. Burns and secured a job at the Plant. Marge became pregnant with Lisa in 1981, shortly before the new couple bought their first house. In 1985 and 1986, Homer saw brief success as the lead singer and songwriter for the barbershop quartet the Be Sharps, even winning a Grammy. During his time with the group, Homer was frequently absent from home, which put stress on his marriage. After the group broke up due to creative differences, Homer went back to Springfield to continue his old life. Sometime in the late 1980s, Homer and Marge carefully budgeted so Homer could have his dream job as a pin monkey in a bowling alley. Unfortunately for Homer, Marge became pregnant with Maggie shortly after he started his new job, and not being able to support his family, he went back to the Nuclear Plant. He likes martini.

Homer’s age was initially 34, but as the writers aged, they found that he seemed a bit older too, so they changed his age to 38; this is contradicted by The Homer Book which states Homer is currently 36. Homer reunites with his mother.Homer’s personality is one of frequent stupidity, laziness, and explosive anger. He suffers from a short attention span which complements his short-lived passion for hobbies, enterprises and various causes. Homer is prone to emotional outbursts; he is very envious of his neighbors, the Flanders family, and is easily enraged by Bart and strangles him frequently. He shows no compunction about this, and does not attempt to hide his actions from people outside the family, even showing disregard for his son’s well being in other ways, such as leaving Bart alone at a port. While Homer’s thoughtless antics often upset his family, he has also performed acts that reveal him to be a surprisingly caring father and husband: in “Lisa the Beauty Queen”, selling his cherished ride on the Duff blimp and using the money to enter Lisa in a beauty pageant so she could feel better about herself; in “Rosebud”, giving up his chance at wealth to allow Maggie to keep a cherished teddy bear; in “Radio Bart”, spearheading an attempt to dig Bart out after he had fallen down a well, even though Homer generally hates doing physical labor; and in “A Milhouse Divided”, arranging a surprise second wedding with Marge to make up for their lousy first ceremony, even going so far as to hire one of The Doobie Brothers as part of the wedding band and getting a divorce from Marge, essentially making their second wedding a “real” one.

Homer frequently steals things from his neighbor, Ned Flanders, including TV trays, power tools, air conditioners, and at one point, part of his house. Flanders knows about this, but Homer constantly states that he has “borrowed” the stolen items. He has also stolen golf balls from the local driving range, cable television, office supplies (including computers) from work, and beer mugs from Moe’s Tavern. Also, while ‘working the night shift’ with the rest of the employees at a local discount store (which was just them being locked in at night and forced to stay via electrocution chip) he made off with a number of Plasma Screen TVs on a forklift, while at the same time breaking out of the store.

Homer has a vacuous mind, but he is still able to retain a great amount of knowledge about specific subjects. He shows short bursts of astonishing insight, memory, creativity and fluency with many languages. Homer is also extremely confident; no matter how little skill or knowledge he has about anything he tries to do, he has no doubt that he will be successful. However, his brief periods of intelligence are overshadowed by much longer and more consistent periods of ignorance, forgetfulness and stupidity. Homer has a low IQ due to his hereditary “Simpson Gene,” his alcohol problem, exposure to radioactive waste, repetitive cranial trauma, and a crayon lodged in the frontal lobe of his brain. Homer’s intelligence was said to jump fifty points when he had the crayon removed, bringing him to an IQ of 105, slightly above that of an average person, however he had the crayon reinserted, presumably lowering his IQ back to its original 55. The amount of Homer’s brain which still functions is also questionable. At one point in the series, Homer apparently lost 5% of his brain after a coma.

Homer’s attitudes toward women, romance, and sex are occasionally explored. While Homer’s marriage with Marge is occasionally strained, it seems generally happy and faithful. Despite this, Homer usually shows no qualms with gawking at (and drooling over) attractive women. Homer successfully avoided an affair with Mindy Simmons, but has made the occasional remark denoting his attraction to other women (including the gag about coveting his neighbor’s wife), even in front of Marge.

His relationship with his children is not the best, although he loves his children deeply. His relationship with Bart is often shown as a love-hate relationship or friendship. They sometimes appear to get on very well, however, such as on the numerous occasions they jointly commit various petty crimes or “get-rich-quick”-schemes. Homer’s relationship with Lisa is usually quite good although Lisa often tires of her father’s ignorance. His relationship with Maggie is perhaps the best, due to her infant state. However, even though Maggie has saved his life a number of times, he sometimes forgets she even exists (once telling Marge the dog does not count when she told him they had three kids).

So while Homer doesn’t brew beer, he does certainly drink a lot of it. And without him, the world may not have ever heard of Duff Beer. And even though there are a few real world examples of Duff being brewed, I don’t recommend them, at least not the ones I’ve tried. But do drink a toast to Springfield’s favorite beer drinker, Homer Simpsons. Below are a few of the times Homer’s mentioned beer throughout the show’s twenty-plus year run.

“Beer. Now there’s a temporary solution.”

— Homer Simpson, in “Homer’s Odyssey,” Season 1, Episode 3, 1990

“Ah, good ol’ trustworthy beer. My love for you will never die.”

— Homer Simpson, in “Bart Gets Hit by a Car,” Season 2, Episode 10, 1991

“Mmmm… beer.”

— Homer Simpson, “Lisa’s Pony, Season 3, Episode 8, 1991; “So It’s Come to
This: A Simpsons Clip Show,” Season 4, Episode 18, 1993; and “Whacking
Day, Season 4, Episode 20, 1993”

“I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer.”

— Homer Simpson, in “Duffless,” Season 4, Episode 16, 1993

“Ah beer, my one weakness. My Achilles heel if you will.”

— Homer Simpson, in “So It’s Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show,” Season 4, Episode 18, 1993

“Alright Brain, you don’t like me, and I don’t like you. But lets just get me through this, and I can get back to killing you with beer.”

— Homer Simpson, in “The Front,” Season 4, Episode 19, 1993

“To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

— Homer Simpson, in “Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment,” Season 8,
Episode 18, 1997

Homer: “Will there be beer?”

Movementarian: “Beer is not allowed.”

Homer: “Homer no function beer well without.”

Movementarian: “Would you rather have beer or complete and utter contentment?”

Homer: “What kind of beer?”

— Homer Simpson, in “The Joy of Sect,” Season 9, Episode 13, 1998

“I’m glad I’m back. Because the moment that sweet, sweet beer hit my tongue, I was born again!”

— Homer Simpson, in “The Joy of Sect,” Season 9, Episode 13, 1998

“Well, this time I’m drunk on love… and beer.”

— Homer Simpson, in “Natural Born Kissers,” Season 9, Episode 25, 1998

“Expand my brain, learning juice!”

— Homer Simpson, about to drink a Duff Beer, in “See Homer Run,” Season
17, Episode 6, 2005

Therapist: “And has there been any improvement in Homer’s drinking?”

Marge: “Well, he’s down to two beers in the shower.”

Homer: “They’re pale ales … please.”

— From “Specs and the City,” Season 25, Episode 11, 2014

Beer Birthday: Emily Sauter

March 4, 2019 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the 36th birthday of the extraordinary Emily Sauter, who used to work at Two Roads Brewing as their Social Media and Communications Manager, where on Two Roads’ website she reveals an intense love of soup but an equally powerful dislike of broccoli. I wonder how broccoli soup fits in with that? She now spends most of her time studying for the Master Cicerone test but at night dons the cape and cowl to draw Pints and Panels, her blog of beer reviews, done in a comic strip style, putting to good use her education from Vermont’s Center for Cartoon Studies. And her great book, Beer is For Everyone!: Of Drinking Age, was published the year before last. Emily’s become one of my favorite people to hang out with at beer events, a kindred spirit. Join me in wishing Emily a very happy birthday.

Stan Hieronymus and Emily at GABF last year.

At the Beer Bloggers Conference in San Diego, opening a bottle of Crazy Pucker.

Sam Calagione, Emily and me at Belmont Station in Portland during CBC last year.

Earlier this year at Russian River for the release of Pliny the Younger.

Suited up, chicken hat included, for Oktoberfest in 2014 (photo purloined from Facebook).

And finally, couch trippin’ through the Lagunitas bottling line at the Beer Bloggers Conference in San Diego last year. Here’s me, Emily, and Fred Abercrombie, riding the sofa roller coaster.

Buddy’s Beer Garden

November 18, 2017 By Jay Brooks 1 Comment

On the eve of the repeal of prohibition, anticipation must have been running pretty high. On November 18, 1933, Warner Brothers cartoon studios released their newest Looney Tunes animated short film, “Buddy’s Beer Garden.”

“It is a Looney Tunes cartoon, featuring Buddy, the second star of the series. It was supervised by Earl Duvall, here credited as ‘Duval,’ was one of only five Warner Bros. cartoons directed by him, and one of only three Buddy shorts. Musical direction was by Norman Spencer.”

Here’s the description of the film from Wikipedia:

We enter Buddy’s beer garden, where are gathered many merry patrons, singing “Oh du lieber Augustin”, mugs in hand. The happy opening scene fades to one of an equally merry Buddy, who balances a tray and sings of the good cheer his beer brings (to the tune of “Auf Wiederseh’n (We’ll Meet Again)”), as he fixes a tablecloth and sets down two glasses of his ware, while a black dog, pretzels on its tail, behind him barks in tune. A German oom-pah band creates an ambience (and, as the band reappears four times throughout the cartoon, each time they are seen, as a gag, a small member of the group will come out of the largest member’s brass instrument, playing, in succession, a trumpet, maracas, a piano, and a bass drum.) Beer flows on tap, and Buddy ensures that each mug has plenty of foam. Cookie neatly prepares several pretzels, which then are salted by the same little dachshund, and carried thence away. The tongue sandwiches offered as part of the bar’s free lunch sing & lap up mustard; an impatient patron (presumably the same brute who serves as the villain in later shorts, such as Buddy’s Show Boat and Buddy’s Garage) demands his beer, which he instantly gulps down upon its arrival.

All present take part in “It’s Time to Sing ‘Sweet Adeline’ Again”: some sing, one patron plays his spaghetti as though the noodles were strings on a harp, Buddy makes an instrument out of his steins, &c. Cookie comes around, offering cigars and cigarettes to the patrons, one of whom, the same impatient brute as before, accepts, but not before freshly stroking the girl’s chin. Cookie performs an exotic dance for the entire beer garden, and is joined by the selfsame patron, & a formerly stationery piano. The film goes on: Buddy whistles “Hi Lee Hi Lo”, tossing beer from one mug to another, preparing sandwiches, clearing tables.

As a final treat for his customers, Our Hero introduces a lady singer (who bears a striking resemblance to Mae West), who reveals herself only after Buddy’s departure and a brief musical interlude. The grand dame attracts the attention of the very same recurring patron, who drunkenly stumbles over to her with the intention of receiving a kiss: as the song (“I Love my Big Time, Slow Time Baseball Man”) ends, he makes his request, but a horned goat, part of a poster advertising “Bock Beer”, but nonetheless quite alive, with its horns stabs the patron’s backside, sending him flying. The patron, on his airborne journey, causes the lady singer to catch her dress on an overhanging tree; the dress tears, & the throaty performer, now grounded, is revealed to be a cross-dressed Buddy. Pleasantly embarrassed, Buddy stalks away, waving blithely to all present; in the final shot, we see that the bird cage strapped to Buddy’s posterior (there to replicate the voluptuousness of his singing persona), in fact houses an exotic bird, which shows itself to have a voice & nose like those of Jimmy Durante, as well as a saying: “Am I mortified!”

Although it’s fairly small, here’s the entire cartoon to watch. Enjoy.

Scrappy’s Beer Parade

March 8, 2017 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

As regular readers will know, I’m a huge cartoon nerd. Today, March 8, 1933, the cartoon “Beer Parade” was released by Screen Gems, and created by the Charles Mintz Studio. It was a Scrappy cartoon.

Here’s more about Scrappy, from Wikipedia:

Scrappy is a cartoon character created by Dick Huemer for Charles Mintz’s Krazy Kat Studio (distributed by Columbia Pictures). A little round-headed boy, Scrappy often found himself involved in off-beat neighborhood adventures. Usually paired with his little brother Oopy (originally Vontzy), Scrappy also had an on-again, off-again girlfriend named Margy and a Scotty dog named Yippy. In later shorts the annoying little girl Brat and pesky pet Petey Parrot also appeared. Huemer created the character in 1931, and he remained aboard Mintz’s studio until 1933. With Huemer’s departure, his colleagues Sid Marcus and Art Davis assumed control of the series. The final Scrappy cartoon, The Little Theatre was released in 1941.

Posters for the “Beer Parade”

Here’s the synopsis of the cartoon from its IMDb page:

Scrappy and Oopie, though little boys, happily celebrate the return of beer after fourteen years, with the help of brew-guzzling gnomes, apparently from the “Rip Van Winkle” story. They leave an allegorical “Prohibition” figure (ugly old man in stovepipe hat) stripped and chased off.

Here’s another description from a user review at IMDb:

Scrappy and Oopie are partying with some gnomes who are enjoying beer from barrels. A mean Prohibition Agent appears and attacks the barrels with an axe, but Oopie will defend the right of people to enjoy their lager in this cartoon released a month before beer sales were legalized.

It had been a long fight and this typically bizarre Scrappy cartoon has the two children strongly in support of drinking. Although they do not partake themselves, they certainly use startlingly strange methods typical of Dick Huemer’s series. It is a pretty good one because it does not ease up in the second half. Dick and his staff certainly made it clear where their sympathies lay!

This is from Scrappyland, a website dedicated to Scrappy:

Plot summary: Scrappy and Oopy joyfully serve beer by the barrelful to dozens of drunken elves until Old Man Prohibition shows up. The boys and the little men assault him from the ground and the air–even using explosives–until he chooses to bury himself. Whereupon the good times roll once more.

(I particularly like the moment when Oopy, having rigged up a rope to trip Old Man Prohibition, tugs at it to verify that it’s tight enough to do the job.)

The cartoon is an obvious allegory concerning prohibition and its repeal. But it was released on March 4, 1933, when the federal ban on alcoholic beverages was still in force, so its celebration of unrestrained imbibing was anticipatory.

FDR, who famously made repeal part of his campaign, had taken office in January; a couple of weeks after the cartoon debuted, he signed the Cullen-Harrison act, which permitted the sale of wine and 3.2 percent beer starting the following month. In December, prohibition on the federal level was fully repealed.

Prohibition was never enforced all that rigorously in cartoon land. The 1929 Silly Symphony The Merry Dwarfs presaged The Beer Parade by showing its title characters quaffing beer; 1931’s Lady Play Your Mandolin, the first Merrie Melody, takes place in a saloon and is full of tippling animals, although it’s possible that it’s set in Mexico. But the sheer quantity of beer in The Beer Parade–served by two small boys without any adult supervision–remains startling. It’s unimaginable that anyone would have made a cartoon with this theme a few years later. Or today.

(Scrappy and Oopy aren’t shown drinking in the cartoon, but they are depicted brandishing foamy mugs themselves, and do seem to be in an awfully exuberant good mood.)

He’s reviewing it from a YouTube video where someone at a public screening simply videotaped the cartoon and then uploaded it. But it’s subsequently been removed from YouTube. And as far as I can tell, Scrappy cartoons have not been released on either videotape or DVD. Which is a crying shame, because it looks like it was an amazing cartoon.

This is from Scrappyland, a website dedicated to Scrappy:

Dr. Richard Huemer–the son of Scrappy’s creator–shared this New Years’ card which was sent to his father by Joe De Nat, the Mintz studio’s musical director. The card depicts Scrappy and his Mintz stablemate Krazy Kat pumping beer into a mug inhabited by a piano player and a mermaid (presumably representing Mr. and Mrs. De Nat). Assuming that the references to 1933 and the new year mean that the De Nats distributed this card around January 1, 1933, prohibition was still in effect, but the recent election of FDR meant that its days were clearly numbered.

Beer In Ads #2195: Heineken Refreshes Don Martin

February 22, 2017 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Wednesday’s ad is for Heineken, from the 1970s. In the later 1970s, Heineken embarked on a series of ads with the tagline “Heineken Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach.” Many of the ads were in a sequential panel, or comic strip, format and they were intended to be humorous.

In this ad, a three-panel format, drawn by cartoonist Don Martin, who was best known for his work in MAD Magazine, a chef looks tired, as evidenced by his hat falling limp behind his head, so he’s drinking a mug of beer. Which — FWOT! — makes his hat stand up stiffly at attention. But in the last panel, once he’s removed his hat, his hair is standing up too, with a part down the center. So that’s where the changed text comes in: it’s not “parts,” but “partings” in this ad. Unfortunately, this was the best resolution of the ad I could find.

Beer In Ads #2141: It’s Double-Dry

December 30, 2016 By Jay Brooks 2 Comments

Friday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, again from 1942. It’s another fairly odd cartoon with our two intrepid window washers, all in red, back again. This time they’re again jumping down off a building, but it must have been shorter since they’re not using buckets as parachutes. The pun-filled ad is again titled “‘DOUBLE-HOPPED’ is why it’s DOUBLE DRY .. and Double-Flavored, too!” The ad copy certainly suggests they were emphasizing the beer’s hop character, and then even mention the brewing process for this beer, or at least part of it, and it’s only slightly altered from the first of these I found two days ago. “Here’s how it’s DOUBLE-HOPPED to double your refreshment. 1. Hops are added in the brew kettles, the usual way. 2. Then, in a unique process, additional hops are suspended in tanks where the ale ages. Slowly, these tender young blossoms add their fragrance and flavor…giving double the tangy dryness, double the delicious aroma and distinctive flavor.” I don’t know how unique that was, it sounds pretty much like dry-hopping, though maybe it was unusual in the U.S. at the time. Or could simply have been adspeak hyperbole. But they’re not done, and end with this pun. “Hop To It and See!”

Beer In Ads #2139: Hop … Hop … Hooray

December 28, 2016 By Jay Brooks 1 Comment

Wednesday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1942. It’s a fairly odd cartoon with two window washers, all in red, jumping off a building and using their buckets as parachutes, just so they get a couple of beer. The pun-filled ad is actually titled “‘DOUBLE-HOPPED’ is why it’s DOUBLE DRY .. and Double-Flavored, too!” I don’t think I realized that Pabst had made an ale, and it was called “Pabst Blue Ribbon Double-Dry Ale,” no less. The ad copy certainly suggests they were emphasizing the beer’s hop character, and then even mention the brewing process for this beer, or at least part of it. “First, you see, hops are added as usual, in the brew kettles. Then, in a unique and costly process, huge sacks of succulent young hop blossoms are suspended in the tanks as the ale ages.” I don’t know how unique that was, it sounds pretty much like dry-hopping, though maybe it was unusual in the U.S. at the time. Or could simply have been adspeak hyperbole.

Beer In Ads #2137: Brewed In The Canadian Tradition

December 26, 2016 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Monday’s ad is for Carling’s Red Cap Ale, from the 1960s or 70s. It was created by well-known cartoonist Jack Davis, who co-founded Mad Magazine. I’m not quite sure what “Canadian tradition” he’s talking about, but it may involve everyone, even inanimate objects and animals.

The Ballmer Peak

October 28, 2016 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

I was unaware of the Ballmer Peak (named for Microsoft’s 30th employee and former CEO Steve Ballmer) until today, but it’s an interesting idea, although there are some who believe it just may be an elaborate joke. In a nutshell, it’s the idea “that having a BAC in the 0.129% – 0.138% range can improve your cognitive abilities,” and it’s supposedly an effective technique to help with computer programming. Another way it’s been described is that “alcohol improves cognitive ability, up to a point,” and that it’s apparently a variation of the Yerkes–Dodson law, which says “that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point.” xkcd described it with this cartoon:

Obviously, it may sound like bunk, but there has been earlier evidence of Creativity & Beer and also Caffeine Vs. Alcohol: Which One Better Enhances Creativity?. There’s also a lot of anecdotal evidence that alcohol can trigger creativity and/or create the conditions for new types of thinking to occur if in that sweet spot of not too drunk, and not too sober. Certainly there’s a rich historical record of books and songs created by writers and composers who were under the influence. And there was a great Bill Hicks bit about how if you think there are no positive aspects to drugs, he suggests burning all of the music that you love, because so many of the musicians who wrote it were “really fucking high.” Naturally, Bill put it much better than I ever could:

“You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. ‘Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few tunes.”

Recently, however, there was an article in the Observer whose headline was “The Ballmer Peak Is Real, Study Says.”

A recent study at the University of Illinois tested the creative problem solving ability of a group of men who were given vodka cranberry and snacks and asked to solve brain teasers. The results were starkly different for the tispy group, which had a blood alcohol concentration level of 0.075, versus the control group:

Astonishingly, those in the drinking group averaged nine correct questions to the six answers correct by the non-drinking group. It also took drunk men 11.5 seconds to answer a question, whereas non-drunk men needed 15.2 seconds to think. Both groups had comparable results on a similar exam before the alcohol consumption began.

The study notes that the Ballmer Peak effect was present for creative problem solving but not for working memory.

Also, on the skeptics forum on Stack Exchange, someone asked if the Balmer Peak was real, and one of the answers posted was this:

[An] article by Norlander [link no longer working] specifically studies the relationship between moderate alcohol consumption (1.0ml/kg body weight) and creativity. According to my very rough calculations, this would correspond to a BAC in the range of 0.12–0.14 for a 73kg human. The paper concludes

…modest alcohol consumption inhibits aspects of creativity based mainly on the secondary process (preparation, certain parts of illumination, and verification), and disinhibits those based mainly on the primary process (incubation, certain parts of illumination, and restitution).

In other words, moderate alcohol consumption does improve certain types of creative thinking, while inhibiting other types of creative thinking. Since the skills required for computer programming are solely cognitive in nature (discounting the motor skills required to type, of course), and given that creativity is a large part of computer programming, it is at least plausible that one might gain some amount of improvement from alcohol consumption.

There have also been studies on the relationship between alcohol consumption and creative output. That study examined 34 well known, heavy drinking, 20th century writers, artists, and composers/performers. It concludes:

Analysis of this information yielded a number of interesting findings. Alcohol use proved detrimental to productivity in over 75% of the sample, especially in the latter phases of their drinking careers. However, it appeared to provide direct benefit for about 9% of the sample, indirect benefit for 50% and no appreciable effect for 40% at different times in their lives. Creative activity, conversely, can also affect drinking behavior, leading, for instance, to increased alcohol consumption in over 30% of the sample. Because of the complexities of this relationship, no simplistic conclusions are possible.

So for a small portion of people there was a notable increase in creative output as a result of alcohol intake. It does appear that the study did not control for the quantity of alcohol intake, though, so this may not be directly applicable to the Ballmer Peak.

The best study I was able to find on the subject was by Lapp, Collins, and Izzo. They gave subjects vodka tonics of varying strengths (by varying the ratio of tonic to vodka), some of which did not even contain any alcohol. The subjects believed that they were drinking a standard-strength vodka tonic. The subjects then were asked to perform a number of cognitively and creatively challenging tasks. Here is what they conclude:

The present results support the idea that creative people probably gain inspiration from consuming alcohol …, but show that this effect may be due to the expected rather than the pharmacological effects of the drug. … A convergence of evidence supported the idea that creativity is enhanced (at least in some aspects) by the expected effects of alcohol.

In other words, alcohol can improve certain aspects of one’s cognitive ability, but this effect is not likely due to any pharmacological process (i.e., it is often sufficient to merely believe that one is drinking alcohol in order to achieve the same benefit).

And remember: The Ballmer Peak, as it is currently understood, is but a two dimensional projection of what in reality is a higher dimensional space, vi&.

The Ballmer Peak-a-Thon even has a Ballmer Calculator you can use to determine how much to drink to reach maximum effectiveness.