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MARIEHAMN - Wine experts Wednesday popped the corks of two bottles of champagne recently salvaged from the bottom of the Baltic Sea, where they had lain in a sunken ship for nearly 200 years. On stage in front of some 100 journalists and wine enthusiasts gathered in the capital of Finland's island province of Aaland, they eased the fragile corks from the dark brown bottles — one from the house of Veuve-Clicquot and the other from the now extinct house of Juglar. Swedish and worldwide champagne expert Richard Julin tastes a 200-year-old champagne Read more: http://www.windsorstar.com/life/World+oldest+champagne+uncorked/3841588/story.html#ixzz15b2y19eI As the contents were...

What do you get when you combine water, American persimmons and hops and ferment it with yeast? A beer based on a 300-year-old recipe scribbled in a cookbook kept by Virginia's prominent Randolph family. Ardent Craft Ales in Richmond recently brewed "Jane's Percimon Beer" unearthed from the book in the Virginia Historical Society's collections from the 1700s that contains food, medicinal remedies and beer recipes. The formula for the Colonial-era concoction is one of thousands of alcoholic recipes in the society's collection that provide a glimpse into what Virginians and others were drinking in the 18th century and other points...

Patrick McGovern "The site is very rich archeologically, has been excavated for the last 50 years by the University of Pennsylvania Museum. It has a large palace area with rooms, some of which are thought to have been kitchens for making the food for the palace, with jars of barley and other goods. Also, it has a whole series of tombs in which the burial was done in a special wooden chamber beneath a very large mound. It's almost as if you cut it yesterday and put the structure together. It is the earliest intact human building made of...

The modern diners sitting before Sams were about to eat the first reconstruction of that feast—a celebration that had remained undiscovered for decades after archaeologist Rodney S. Young first excavated Midas' tomb in 1957. Ancient Roman, Greek, or even Maya banquets had been re-created previously, but generally from texts and ancient recipes. Not so with the Midas feast. "It's the first time that somebody tried to do it working just from the chemical evidence," says Patrick E. McGovern, the museum's molecular archaeologist who led the analyses. In other words, from the pan scrapings.

Archaeology is an inexact science, as Sir Arthur Evans, a flamboyant early practitioner, knew... an excavator can always promote an extravagant theory under the guise of interpreting the finds. As he started to unearth a prehistoric mound at Knossos in Crete at the turn of the 20th century, Evans put his imagination into high gear. He rebuilt parts of a 3,500-year-old palace in modernist style using cement and reconstructed fragmentary frescoes to suit his views on Bronze Age religion and politics. Evans boldly argued that the Minoans, as he called the early islanders, shunned warfare, conveniently forgetting about the ruined...

“Far too often, what passes for history is nothing more than rehashed, undocumented folklore and myth, and this is especially true with ‘cocktail history.’ Not so with this fine book, Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt. It is well-researched and documented, while also immensely enjoyable to read.” —Philip Greene, vice president, co-founder, and legal counsel of the Museum of the American Cocktail and author of To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway Cocktail Companion “This charming and erudite book is full of surprises. I never dreamed that the presidents were such boozers! Pour yourself a toddy and ponder a vexing question:...

200 years ago today, one of history's most bizarre disasters befell London when a 15-foot wave of beer flooded an entire neighborhood and left eight people dead.The Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road in London boasted a massive 22-foot-tall vat that held some 160,000 gallons of dark porter. On October 17, 1814, one of the metal hoops meant to secure it snapped, and the wooden vat succumbed to the immense pressure of all that fermenting brew. The gushing beer smashed open the brewery's other vats, resulting in a raging sea of beer that burst forth from the building.Over one...

I was watching the ballgame today, complaining to my wife about the lame commercials, and this one came to mind. It's still the best.

GRAPEVINE, Texas— A member of the Stroh beer family plummeted to his death early Wednesday when a rope of sheets he had fashioned to climb down from a 10th-story hotel balcony failed to hold, police said.Charles Suddards Stroh, 43, of Addison died about 3:30 a.m. at Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office reported.Police said Stroh had been staying at the Embassy Suites Outdoor World in Grapevine since early July, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in its online edition Wednesday. Bill Bretches, general manager for the hotel, declined to comment.Stroh was a member of the family...

A Russian beverage company said on Thursday that it was acquiring the Pabst Brewing Company, which makes the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer popular with barflies and hipsters alike and other brands like Colt 45 and Old Milwaukee. [snip] The buyer is Oasis Beverages, a Russian brewer and beverages distributor. Backing Oasis is TSG Consumer Partners, an American private equity firm focused on consumer goods, which will take a minority stake. “Pabst Blue Ribbon is the quintessential American brand – it represents individualism, egalitarianism and freedom of expression – all the things that make this country great,” Eugene Kashper, the chairman...

<p>"Archaeologists in Israel have discovered a massive compound dating back to the Byzantine era, which was used for “industrial-scale” production of wine and olive oil.</p> <p>The site at Ramat Bet Shemesh about 19 miles west of Jerusalem contains an oil press, wine press and colorful mosaics, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority.</p>

A 200-year-old stoneware seltzer bottle that was recently recovered from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea contains alcohol, according to the results of a preliminary analysis. Researchers discovered the well-preserved and sealed bottle in June, while exploring the so-called F53.31 shipwreck in Gdańsk Bay, close to the Polish coast. Preliminary laboratory tests have now shown the bottle contains a 14-percent alcohol distillate, which may be vodka or a type of gin called jenever, most likely diluted with water. The chemical composition of the alcohol corresponds to that of the original brand of "Selters" water that is engraved...

Egypt's minister of antiquities says Japanese archeologists have unearthed the tomb of an ancient beer brewer in the city of Luxor that is more than 3,000 years old. Mohammed Ibrahim says Friday the tomb dates back to the Ramesside period and belongs to the chief "maker of beer for gods of the dead" who was also the head of a warehouse. He added that the walls of the tomb's chambers contain "fabulous designs and colors, reflecting details of daily life ... along with their religious rituals." The head of the Japanese team, Jiro Kondo, says the tomb was discovered during...

The beer will be called Bone Dusters Paleo Ale (Hardy har har [Okay, actually, "paleo ale" is pretty good]). The yeast come from the surface of one of the oldest marine mammal fossils ever discovered in the western hemisphere. The idea for the beer came from Jason Osborne, who co-directs a nonprofit dedicated to advancing paleontology and geology. A paleo beer, Osborne thought, would be a great hook to interest non-scientists in fossils. I think many non-scientists are quite interested in fossils already, but I cannot argue against a paleo beer. Will whale-fossil beer really taste that different from other...

We've known for a while now that moderate wine-drinking can confer some health benefits. Now a new study reveals moderate beer consumption can also reduce the risk of heart disease by 31%. So what's behind this unexpected health benefit? Researchers at Italy's Fondazione di Ricerca e Cura combined several different studies conducted in the last few years that allowed them to explore the possible link between beer drinking and cardiovascular disease, with a data set of over 200,000 people. They found that regular, moderate beer drinking carries almost exactly the same health benefit that has previously been demonstrated for wine...

If 10 guys gather in a garage on a Sunday afternoon, it’s a good bet that beer will be involved. What made the gathering March 9 at Mark Sheftick’s home in west Springfield unusual is they weren’t there just to drink beer. The guys were there to make it. Like the car enthusiast who just can’t help but tinker under the hood, these home-brewers have figured out what goes into a good beer, and now they’re concocting their own. They’re equal parts chemist, chef and regular ol’ beer lover. Homemade alcoholic beverages make many people think of moonshining. But those...

Local Beer Only at Oktoberfest, Unless It's Belgian, of Course By MARK LANDLER MUNICH (MUNCHEN), Sept. 19 — The Oktoberfest starts here this weekend, and even before noon today, the vaulted main hall of the Hofbräuhaus was teeming with tourists in boisterous training. But in Bavaria's breweries, bitterness is spoiling the season. Some of Germany's leading beers have been sold into foreign hands, and to defenders of national pride, something of Germany's birthright has been sold with them. Earlier this week, one of Germany's oldest breweries, Gabriel Sedlmayr, announced it would sell its famous beers, which include Löwenbräu, to Interbrew,...

Obama's & His Dark Sayings; The Wrath of God On America http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrp6wUkTGjY

<p>Beer brewers are objecting to a proposed federal rule that would make it harder for breweries to sell leftover grains as animal feed instead of throwing them away.</p> <p>The Food and Drug Administration rule change would mean brewers would have to meet the same standards as livestock and pet-food manufacturers, imposing new sanitary handling procedures, record keeping and other food safety processes on brewers.</p>

As barbecue season approaches, researchers have discovered an unlikely ingredient that could improve the safety of your meat - letting it swill in beer. They say that letting meat marindade in pilsner can help reduce the formation of potentially harmful cancer-causing substances in grilled meats. They say pilsner and black beer are most effective, halving the amount of Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which have been linked to colorectal cancer.