Posted on 10/30/2009 9:54:17 AM PDT by markomalley
Call it a culture clash, trans-Atlantic style.
The British think Americans are puritanical and somewhat batty. Americans find the British morally lax and too willing to bend the rules.
It all started at a high school in Maine when a student consumed half a bottle of Fentimans Victorian Lemonade, then looked at the label and discovered it contained small amounts of alcohol, listed as less than 0.5 percent. By contrast, a typical American beer usually contains about 5 percent alcohol.
Not wanting to get in trouble, he showed it to school administrators, who called police. Police referred the matter to state officials to determine whether the zesty beverage could be sold to minors. Anti-alcohol groups got involved, sending out warnings about the potential perils of the highbrow brew.
On Thursday, the Maine attorney general's office said it has determined that, in Maine, at least, people have to be 21 to buy the product.
"Fentimans Lemonade cannot be sold to minors," said spokeswoman Kate Simmons.
The president of the U.S. division of Fentimans, Greg Warwick, said the company's full line of beverages is deemed OK by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Maine is the only place where anybody has raised a stink, Mr. Warwick said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
It’s a preservative - as evidenced by my advanced age to date.
Quick question: Assuming a 100lb student were given this drink, how much would he have to drink to become legally drunk? {Remember to factor in the detoxification efforts of the kidneys and liver.}
Kid sounds like an a**.
Vanilla extract is 35% alcohol. Available on any grocery shelf, oh, no!
(Don’t tell anyone.)
And I'm at 200lbs., so couldn't we just double the number for a 100lb. kid?
While we're at it, maybe we should just make everyone only drink distilled water, since everything else apparently has either calories (bad! bad!) or causes cancer...
Quick question: Assuming a 100lb student were given this drink, how much would he have to drink to become legally drunk? {Remember to factor in the detoxification efforts of the kidneys and liver.}
Or, excuse me—cut the number in half to 24-30.
Not wanting to get in trouble, he showed it to school administrators, who called police. Police referred the matter to state officials to determine whether the zesty beverage could be sold to minors. Anti-alcohol groups got involved, sending out warnings about the potential perils of the highbrow brew.
_____________________________________________
Well. I guess the public indoctrination camps we silly Americans call ‘schools’ are starting to show results.
“The British think Americans are puritanical and somewhat batty.”
Sure. Batty. Just as batty as allowing tyrants putting video cameras in one’s home to watch what you do. Batty as in having “garbage police” weighing trash so they can fine you if you “throw away” the wrong thing. Sure, slaves. Call us batty. That’s the only thing you can do—right now.
Sounds like the hall monitor type. This kid should worry less about trace amounts of alcohol in his lemonade and more about getting beat up for being an annoying goody two shoes.
>>Quick question: Assuming a 100lb student were given this drink, how much would he have to drink to become legally drunk?
>>{Remember to factor in the detoxification efforts of the kidneys and liver.}
>
>Pretty easy to figure out for your self.
LOL - I’m about 130lbs and 27; so it doesn’t matter in my particular case.
>Since a beer has about 5% and this drink has 0,5% . how many beers do you need to get drunk? multiply this with 10 and you know it.
But you aren’t factoring in the time it takes to drink ten times the volume; which gives the liver more time itself to work.
Let’s say that it takes 3 pints to get drunk and you normally finish them in about an hour; how long is it going to take you to drink _THIRTY_ pints? See the problem here; it’s a whole order of magnitude different.
Exactly.
Besides all the brou-ha-ha about that silly drink, the kid should be severly disciplined and expelled from school.
Zero tolerance policy, dontcha know.
Well put!
Joan Kennedy’s beverage of choice
My guess: It contains some trace amounts of alcohol due to natural fermentation processes.
Did they actually measure the alcohol content in a lab?
From the article:
Police Chief Butch Asselin (...): I've never had it; it's probably very good, but their Web site says it can be used for mixed drinks."
Wow, what an idiot. So can milk or water...
Fentimans seems to be taking this silliness in good fun.
http://www.fentimans.com/images/fentimans_home.jpg
Where did the kid get this "demon lemonade"? Did he bring it from home? Get it with his government lunch? Buy it in a vending machine at school? Pick it up at some back alley convenience story on the way to school?
Mainly I was wondering if the school provided it or not. The article doesn't say either way.
I remember kids making sure to put their unpasturized apple cider in the back of the fridge so no one would drink it until it was "ripe".
“Assuming a 100lb student were given this drink, how much would he have to drink to become legally drunk?”
If you said 2 pints of beer (I’m sure it’s probably more), then 56 bottles of lemonade. From the story:
“A person would need to drink about 28 bottles of the lemonade to consume the amount of alcohol found in a typical pint of beer, Miss McKirdy [the operations director at Fentimans] said.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
