50 Interesting Facts about Alcoholic Beverages

Queen Elizabeth II has 4 drinks a day - a gin before lunch, a wine during lunch, a dry martini with dinner, and a glass of champagne following dinner.

2. The Hans island is a disputed territory between Canada and Denmark. The militaries of both countries periodically visit the island to remove the other country’s flag and leave a bottle of Danish schnapps or Canadian whiskey.

3. Jack Daniels employees get a free bottle of Jack on the first payday of each month.

4. In 1955 Jack Daniel's was selling about 150,000 cases annually of its black-labeled Tennessee whiskey. That year Frank Sinatra endorsed the liquor during a performance. Because of that, by the end of 1956, Jack Daniel's sold about 300,000 cases.

5. During prohibition, grape farmers would make semi-solid grape concentrates called wine bricks, which were then sold with the warning "After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for 20 days because then it would turn into wine".

In 2007, workers in Antarctica discovered several perfectly preserved crates of Scotch Whiskey left behind by Ernest Shackleton (Polar explorer) in 1909.

7. The originator (William Griffith Wilson) of AA (alcoholics anonymous) asked for whiskey on is deathbed, but the nurse didn't give it to him.

8. A man named Joe Lentini in New Jersey was charged $3750 for a bottle of wine, ordering it after a waitress told him that it was "thirty-seven fifty".

9. Winston Churchill was prescribed alcohol to get around American Prohibition.

10. 30% of Americans don't drink alcohol at all, 60% drink less than 1 drink a week. The top 10% drink ~74 drinks a week.

Prior to the first nuclear bomb detonation in July of 1945, isotopes such as strontium-90 and cesium-137 simply did not exist in nature. Pieces of art and bottles of wine created before 1945 can be tested for cesium. If they contain traces of cesium, they would almost certainly be fake.

12. The Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, can't sell any liquor because it is in a dry county. Instead, they sell commemorative Jack Daniels bottles that happen to have whiskey in them.

13. 25% of all Russian men die before they reach their mid-50s, mainly due to vodka.

14. During prohibition in the US, an exemption was made for whiskey prescribed by a doctor and sold through a pharmacy. The Walgreens pharmacy chain grew from 20 retail stores to almost 500 during this period, from 1920 to 1933.

15. In 2013, a man was brought to the emergency room with a blood alcohol content of 0.37% though he claimed to have not consumed any alcohol all day. Yeast in his stomach was brewing alcohol out of the food he was eating.

The Royal Navy served sailors daily rum rations until 1970. The last day of rum was called Black Tot Day. Sailors wore black armbands and ships held mock funerals for tots of rum.

17. Scientists in Mexico turned tequila into diamonds by heating a cheap shot to 800 degrees Celsius. At that temp, it vaporized and broke down into its atomic constituents, producing a fine layer of carbon crystal structures identical to diamonds on nearby metal trays.

18. The bar tab of a 1787 farewell party for George Washington is still intact. “According to the bill… [The Founding Fathers] drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 of whiskey, 22 of porter, 8 of hard cider, 12 of beer, and 7 bowls of alcoholic punch”. The party had 55 attendees.

19. In 1759, Arthur Guinness, the founder of Guinness beer leased an old unused brewery for £45 per year for 9,000 years.

20. A theme park (Išgyvenimo Drama) in Lithuania recreates life as a USSR citizen. Visitors have their belongings confiscated, wear gas masks, experience interrogation, and must learn the Soviet anthem. Their reward is a shot of vodka.

Carlsberg beer used to have a Swastika (as a symbol of purity) in its logo. They removed it in 1940 after the Nazi's appropriated it.

22. Beer Labels in the United States are approved or rejected by a single bureaucrat, Kent "Battle" Martin, who has been called the "Beer Bottle Dictator".

23. Mountain Dew was created to be used as a mixer for Whiskey and the name was slang for Moonshine.

24. The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) used tequila to get his voice ready before singing in Moana.

25. If you or your pet have accidentally consumed antifreeze, vodka can be used as an antidote.