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The General's Eggnog One quart of cream One quart of milk A dozen eggs One pint of brandy A half pint of rye A quarter pint of rum A quarter pint of sherry Christmas of 1826 was snowy, cold and lonely for the cadets of West Point. Though called "men" they were really teenage boys -- some as young as 17 -- and they wanted to celebrate Christmas. Young Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederate States of America, was amongst them. But West Point then, as it is now, was a house of order and discipline. The military...

Good afternoon/evening FReepers. Yep, it is Beer Thirty Time Once Again!Happiness is a bubbling airlock! And a Cold Home Brew  BEER Good evening/afternoon brewers and winemakers. My wife and I are heading back to Mississippi from our new digs in Texas mid week next week to check on the house and property we own there. There will not be a beer/wine thread next week and possibly the next week. I do have another Honey Ale kit to brew up when I get back to Texas. I have decided not to brew it yet because I want to be here to...

Good afternoon/evening FReepers. Yep, it is Beer Thirty Time Once Again!Happiness is a bubbling airlock!  BEER Good evening/afternoon brewers and winemakers. Nothing brewed at the Red Devil Brew house this week. Just enjoying a few home brews.Tip: If you have ever been disappointed with your homebrews not developing a nice long lasting head or they seem to be over carbonated and really heady when you pour a glass of your homebrew you might want to try cleaning your glass or mug. Use a mixture of equal parts of Baking Soda and salt then add a little water to make a...

Liquor is abundant in Arabic culture, its role a liquid of material and spiritual pleasure; considering that the Arab heritage is poetic as well as literary, liquor and other spirits abound in these works, their presence being felt in many types of poetic works. This makes liquor an element in reading material, a depiction meant to show splendor and fame, or a catchall term for drinks similar to it. So that one may attempt to approach the poetic truth, characteristics are attributed to liquor, like being a drink with the ability to transcend that which is sensual or habitual (any...

A 3,400-year-old Canaanite fort discovered in the heart of the modern Israeli city of Nahariya will be incorporated into a residential high-rise to be built at the spot. The Bronze Age citadel apparently served as an administrative center serving Mediterranean mariners... It had been destroyed at least four times by fire and was rebuilt each time... Among the artifacts discovered in the ruined citadel's rooms are ceramic figurines with human and animal forms, bronze weapons, and pottery vessels that hadn't been made locally -- they had been imported. That is further testimony to the extensive trading relations among the peoples...

BEIJING (Reuters) - The French used grapes, Russians fermented potatoes, Koreans put ginseng in their drink and Mexicans distilled cactus plants to make fiery tequila. Now China is introducing fish wine. Sun Keman, an entrepreneur in the northeastern port city of Dalian, has formed the Dalian Fisherman's Song Maritime Biological Brewery, with a plan to use his background in the fishing industry to make fish into wine. "Different from China's thousands of years of brewing, the brewery will clean, boil, and ferment fish for making wine," the official Xinhua news agency reported. The company already had orders from Japan, Russia...

The sharing of food and alcoholic beverages is extremely important today as in the past because provides a wealth of information on societies where this occurred. So far however, most of these practices known through archaeology have been primarily those undertaken by people from the same individual community or regional district. The Bronze Age site of Roca (2) in Southern Italy, has produced clear evidence for the existence at this place of one of the earliest inter-cultural feasting 'party' in Mediterranean Europe, dating to c.a. 1200 BC. This small (about 3 hectares nowadays, although it was larger in the past)...

Abstract The aging process is a universal phenomenon shared by all living organisms. The identification of longevity genes is important in that the study of these genes is likely to yield significant insights into human senescence. In this study, we have identified Tequila as a novel candidate gene involved in the regulation of longevity in Drosophila melanogaster. We have found that a hypomorphic mutation of Tequila (Teq f01792), as well as cell-specific downregulation of Tequila in insulin-producing neurons of the fly, significantly extends life span. Tequila deficiency–induced life-span extension is likely to be associated with reduced insulin-like signaling, because Tequila...

HEFER VALLEY, Israel — The new crisp, acidic and mineral white from a high-end Israeli winery was aged for eight months — or, depending on how you look at it, at least 1,800 years. The wine, called marawi and released last month by Recanati Winery, is the first commercially produced by Israel’s growing modern industry from indigenous grapes. It grew out of a groundbreaking project at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank that aims to use DNA testing to identify — and recreate — ancient wines drunk by the likes of King David and Jesus Christ. Eliyashiv Drori, the...

A crate of Scotch whisky that has been frozen in Antarctic ice for more than a century is being slowly thawed by New Zealand museum officials. The crate of whisky was recovered earlier this year - along with four other crates containing whisky and brandy - beneath the floor of a hut built by British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton during his 1908 Antarctic expedition. Four of the crates were left in the ice, but one labelled Mackinlay's whisky was brought to the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island, where officials said it was being thawed in a...

The world's oldest malt whisky - costing up to £10,000 a bottle - went on sale today. The Mortlach 70-year-old Speyside was sampled by a select group of tasters at a ceremony in Edinburgh Castle. Bottles of the rare piece of Scotland's 'liquid history' have now hit the market. Only 54 full-size bottles, costing £10,000 each, and 162 smaller bottles at £2,500 have been made available. The whisky has been released under Gordon and MacPhail's Generations brand. It was filled into its cask on October 15 1938 on the order of John Urquhart, the grandfather of the firm's joint managing...

Scotch whisky meant to warm Antarctic explorers retrieved after century locked in ice Associated Press WELLINGTON, New Zealand - This Scotch has been on the rocks for a century. Five crates of Scotch whisky and two of brandy have been recovered by a team restoring an Antarctic hut used more than 100 years ago by famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. Ice cracked some of the bottles that had been left there in 1909, but the restorers said Friday they are confident the five crates contain intact bottles "given liquid can be heard when the crates are moved." New Zealand Antarctic...

That's the spirit! Cases of Mackinlay's 'Rare Old' scotch whisky have been recovered from the ice outside Shackleton's Antarctic hut. What will it taste like? After some hype and anticipation news has emerged that the crates of whisky long suspected to have been entombed by ice outside Sir Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic hut have finally been recovered. A team from the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust have managed to extract five cases, three of Chas Mackinlay & Co's whisky and two containing brandy made by the Hunter Valley Distillery Limited, Allandale (Australia), which were abandoned by the expedition in 1909 as...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – This Scotch has been on the rocks for a century. Five crates of Scotch whisky and two of brandy have been recovered by a team restoring an Antarctic hut used more than 100 years ago by famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. Ice cracked some of the bottles that had been left there in 1909, but the restorers said Friday they are confident the five crates contain intact bottles "given liquid can be heard when the crates are moved."

<p>WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A beverage company has asked a team to drill through Antarctica's ice for a lost cache of some vintage Scotch whiskey that has been on the rocks since a century ago.</p> <p>The drillers will be trying to reach two crates of McKinlay and Co. whiskey that were shipped to the Antarctic by British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton as part of his abandoned 1909 expedition.</p>

They say whisky matures with age...but leaving it embedded in the Antarctic ice for almost 100 years may be going a bit far.

CAPE ROYDS, Antarctica — This spit of black volcanic rock that juts out along the coast of Antarctica is an inhospitable place. Temperatures drop below –50 Fahrenheit and high winds cause blinding snowstorms... But if you happen upon the small wooden hut that sits at Cape Royds and wriggled yourself underneath, you'd find a surprise stashed in the foot and a half of space beneath the floorboards. Tucked in the shadows and frozen to the ground are two cases of Scotch whisky left behind 100 years ago by Sir Ernest Shackleton after a failed attempt at the South Pole. Conservators...

In 2010, researchers and conservators from the Antarctic Heritage Trust of New Zealand made quite the interesting discovery. Hidden beneath the hut legendary explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton used during his 1908 Antarctica expedition (known as the Nimrod) were five crates covered in ice: three containing whisky and two containing scotch! This wasn’t the only discovery made by the Trust either; they also found a notebook and photos from similar expeditions on the continent.From: Youtube / Shackleton Whisky After the whisky was discovered, one crate was sent to New Zealand where it was thawed and displayed for the public at Canterbury Museum. Three of the bottles...

Obamacare's menu labeling regulation promises to be a disaster for the food and restaurant industries, as its implementation is both costly and extremely onerous. While its deleterious effects on the pizza, restaurant, and grocery industries have been most well known, it also has the potential to shutter an industry near and dear to Americans' hearts: craft beer. Since beer has a few too many calories for bureaucrats, the health law dictates that all brewers include a detailed calorie count on every type of beer produced. Failure to do so, according to Americans for Tax Reform, "means craft brewers will not be able...

Large 1,500-year-old winepress unearthed in area once known for wine production. A large, well-preserved 1,500-year-old winery has been exposed during a violent storm in the Sharon Plain region, located between the Mediterranean Sea and Samarian Hills, the Antiquities Authority announced Monday. According to IAA archeologist Alla Nagorski, the discovery was made off the Eyal Interchange several weeks ago when flooding and hail disrupted an excavation at the site, where natural gas lines are scheduled to be embedded. The northern part of the Sharon Plain is considered the most historical wine region in Israel, and is where the first roots of...