Free Republic

Credit: Polk County Sheriff’s Office ******************************************************************** Someone find the world’s smallest violin. An illegal alien and an alleged Tren de Aragua gangster broke down like a baby being arrested in connection with a violent liquor store robbery spree across central Florida, authorities said. Ramon Jesus Carpintero-Luna, 26, was caught alongside four other suspects tied to a series of armed heists that targeted more than 30 liquor stores, netting an estimated $30,000 in stolen goods. Many of the thefts involved threats of violence and a specific focus on high-end liquor, including bottles of premium scotch, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s...

Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman’s CEO Lawson Whiting said on Wednesday Canadian provinces taking American liquor off store shelves was “worse than a tariff” and a “disproportionate response” to levies imposed by the Trump administration. Several Canadian provinces have taken U.S. liquor off store shelves as part of retaliatory measures against President Donald Trump’s tariffs. “I mean, that’s worse than a tariff, because it’s literally taking your sales away, (and) completely removing our products from the shelves,” Whiting said on a post-earnings call. Canada on Tuesday also imposed 25% tariffs on goods imported from the U.S., including wine, spirits, and beer....

CBN.com – The date was September 16th, 2003. “There were seven police officers and myself. Twenty-seven shots. Twenty-seven bullets. I thought I was gonna die.” Tommy McGouey wasn’t the only person thinking about death that day. The police had a difficult situation on their hands – a unique suicide attempt. Tommy was in the cross-hairs. His life was on the line. “I had planned to have the police shoot me,” Tommy recalls. “I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t want to take drugs and overdose. I didn’t have the resources to do that anyway.” What lead to Tommy’s suicide attempt?...

CBN.com – “We went bar-hopping, and I started doing two shots of Beam and a shot of Budweiser. I started to get ripped, and we went to the go go bar down the street and smoked a couple of joints. I left the go go bar and was doing 85 miles an hour down the road. I went to take a turn, and I don’t know if I yelled Jesus or God. I yelled something out, and the bike turned and catapulted. I almost went over a power line and landed on my feet. I fell back and had no...

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has done more to politicize science and erode trust in public-health leaders than anyone other than Anthony Fauci. Dr. Murthy was at it again on Friday with a headline-grabbing report that recommends alcohol be distributed with cancer warnings. The report warns that, for some cancers, “evidence shows that this risk may start to increase around one or fewer drinks per day.” Note the operative word, may. The link between heavy drinking and throat and mouth cancer is well-established—but not for moderate consumption. Two weeks earlier the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released a congressionally...

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump do not drink. In a country where more than two-thirds of adults consume alcohol, that’s a surprising fact — not that there’s anything wrong with abstaining (and both Trump and Biden have their reasons). However, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris not only counts herself in the majority of Americans who drink, but she apparently has good taste in wine. According to a Washingtonian article published after Harris snagged the vice presidential nomination in 2020, the current VP enjoyed spending time at Cork Wine Bar in Washington, D.C. The venue tweeted a...

Whether you prefer a dry martini or a refreshing gin and tonic, your gin of choice defines the cocktail. If you love gin, you know how it can unfold like a story with each sip: Juniper is the main character, while spices, citrus, and other aromatics play the supporting roles. We believe there’s a gin for almost any imbiber, even the folks who think they don’t like it. If you’re turned off by assertive, sprucy gins, we have a pick for you that’s smooth and bright. If you like old pine boxes in dusty attics and want to capture that...

The wine in the glass urn. Credit: Juan Manuel Román The oldest wine ever discovered, originating from Andalusia, is a white wine over 2,000 years old. A 2019 excavation in Carmona revealed the oldest wine ever discovered, preserved in a man’s tomb for 2,000 years, highlighting significant aspects of Roman funerary rituals and societal gender norms. In 2019, a Roman tomb in Carmona was uncovered, revealing the remains of six individuals—Hispana, Senicio, two other men, and two women, whose names remain unknown. These inhabitants from 2,000 years ago likely never envisioned their funerary rituals gaining significance in the modern era....

The Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company was one America's Largest beer producer. Creaters of Schlitz Beer (the Beer that made Milwakee Famous) the brand was beloved by many until the mid 1970s when attempts to cut production cost resulted in a gradual drop in quality eventually leading to it's decline. Those intrested in the companies fall will find a summery of events from it's founding until it's eventual fall in the early 1980s. This video also delves into the Hawaiian Beer Primo that was brought by Schlitz and could have served as a warning.

California-based Vintage Wine Estate, one of the largest winemakers in the United States, has filed for bankruptcy as a surge in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic turned into a slump in subsequent years. “Over the preceding months, the Company experienced negative financial headwinds that severely impacted its liquidity position,” according to a press release by Vintage, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the District of Delaware on Wednesday. “In response, the Company explored several solutions to overcome these challenges,” the company said on July 24. Selling off all assets was seen as “the most...

Former NBA center Vin Baker lost more than $100 million in career earnings and later became a Starbucks barista. Former NBA guard Kenny Anderson made $63 million and filed for bankruptcy the year he retired. Former NBA MVP Allen Iverson made more than $200 million but said during a 2012 divorce proceeding that he didn't have enough to afford a cheeseburger. Former All-Star Latrell Sprewell lost more than $97 million.

The age of your spirits can be the difference between something lackluster or a life changing cocktail.Wine people approach the storage and consumption of their collections rigorously. There are apps for tracking the most optimal moment for a bottle of wine to be consumed, wine refrigerators have multi-zone technology to store Bordeaux at a different temperature than Champagne, and wine service is a whole other area of nuance. Consumers aren’t nearly as precious about their spirits. Liquor bottles are typically stuffed on a bar cart, in the back of a cabinet, or buried somewhere in the freezer. But spirits, liqueurs,...

But there's a catch.Late Stone Age jugs tell us that a form of “beer,” loosely defined as represented by residues of fermentation, has been with us for 10,000 years. And the earliest evidence of wine production is 6,000 years old — so we’ve had a little time to grapple with alcohol and its bodily effects. More precisely, we’ve had several thousand years in which alcohol in its many fine forms has always gotten the better of us. Humans are, by definition, really, really good at getting drunk. Understanding the chemistry of that metabolic transaction – the immediate absorption of the...

SunExpress’s German-American boss Max Kownatzki told trade publication TTG that one special flight operated by the Turkish airline for a group of Brits on a golfing break was drunk dry in the space of 25-minutes.

A state lawmaker is 'seeking help' after screeching 'Do you know who I am?' and threatening to close down a bar whose staff asked him to leave. Kevin Boyle, a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, then abused patrons and uttered bizarre conspiracies - all caught on camera. No one was spared in his three-minute tirade in which he called them everything from 'idiots' and 'morons' to 'traitors' and 'actors' - with his rant liberally-peppered with f-words too. He threatened to 'end this bar' and to block the promotions of who he wrongly thought were military drinking at...

Using reconnaissance and infiltration methods worthy of blockbuster heists or painstaking counterfeit operations, a growing number of criminals are making off with liquid gold by draining wineries of their finest vintages with elaborate schemes. Last summer, thieves in Paris pulled off a caper worthy of a big-budget Hollywood film. Bandits drilled through the basement walls of a city wine collector's private cellar to make off with 300 bottles of rare wine, aged for decades and valued at $300,000. The criminals used the sprawling Paris catacomb system to get close to the subterranean collection. Authorities believe they had specialized knowledge of...

If there was ever a year that called for bold global action on climate change, 2023 was it. In what will likely go down as the warmest year on record — one rife with catastrophic floods, scorching heat waves, devastating wildfires and enduring drought — leaders from nearly 200 countries gathered to chart a path forward in the fight against climate change. After more than two weeks of tense negotiations representatives from 198 countries agreed Wednesday to “transition away” from fossil fuels. It was a historic deal but one that once again fell short for many climate activists, who saw...

And they aren't even done exploring the massive space.The tomb of Queen Meret-Neith, an Egyptian royal who was most likely the most powerful woman of her era — if not the first female pharaoh — was discovered by archaeologists well over a century ago, but there are still mysteries surrounding both her and her burial site. A team of German and Austrian archaeologists organized by the University of Vienna are currently excavating her sprawling, complicated tomb, and they’ve already made some surprising discoveries. Including lots and lots of wine. Earlier this month, the team revealed that they had unearthed...

An investigation is underway in Florida after burglars used tractor trailers to steal more than $1.6 million worth of alcohol from a distribution company that carries brands including Jose Cuervo and Malibu. The theft began during the early morning hours on July 8 at Republic National Distributing Company, located in Hillsborough County south of Tampa, according to a newly unsealed search warrant obtained by CNN on October 5. Between between 4:10 a.m. and 9:45 a.m., the thieves removed 4,277 cases of liquor from the company that also distributes alcohol from Franzia Wines and Sutter Home Winery, according to the search...

Americans could be urged by officials to drink no more than two beers a week as part of strict new alcohol guidelines. Biden's health czar told DailyMail.com the USDA could revise its alcohol advice to match Canada's, where people are advised to have just two drinks per week. Dr George Koob — who admits enjoying a couple of glasses of Chardonnay a week — said he was watching Canada's 'big experiment' with interest. 'If there's health benefits, I think people will start to re-evaluate where we're at [in the US],' he told DailyMail.com. Current US recommendations say women can have...