Bar & Cocktail Trivia

 

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. That's where we get the phrase, mind your P's and Q's.

 

During the reign of William III, Edward Russell, Captain general of the English forces threw an extravagant party using the garden fountain as a giant punch bowl. He filled it with 560 gallons of brandy, 20 gallons of lime juice, 1,300 pounds of sugar and 5 pounds of nutmeg. The bartender filled a small boat with punch cups and rowed around filling up the punch cups for the awed guests.

During the American prohibition bootleggers carrying moonshine would soop up their car engines in order to outrun the police. After prohibition these country boys raced each other on country roads for the fun of it. These were the humble off-shoot beginnings of NASCAR. A legendary moonshiner by the name of Junior Johnson was one of NASCAR's first drivers.

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. Wet your whistle is the phrase inspired by this practice.

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month or what we know today as the honeymoon.

Before thermometers were invented, brewers would dip a thumb or finger into the mix to find the right temperature for adding yeast. Too cold, and the yeast wouldn't grow. Too hot, and the yeast would die. This thumb in the beer is where we get the phrase Rule of Thumb.

A raisin dropped in a fresh glass of soda will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.

It’s said that W.C. Fields had an attic full of Gin bottles when he died.

The longest bar in the world is at the New Bulldog in Rock Island, Illinois. It’s length measures 684 feet.

Whiskey is the international aviation word used to represent the letter w.

Reno, NV has the highest rate of alcoholism in the US; Provo, UT has the lowest.

 

It's said that the celebration party for the 55 drafters of the US Constitution was stocked with 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of port, 8 bottles of hard cider, 12 beers and seven large bowls of punch.

Belgium has more brands than any other nation on Earth. They have 400 different brands of beer.

The average number of grapes it takes to make a bottle of wine is 600.

Worldwide, approximately 20,000 brands of beer are brewed in 180 styles.

In the 1600's thermometers were filled with brandy instead of mercury.

If you stacked 12 billion Budweiser longneck bottles end to end it would reach 1.7 million miles, or to the moon and back three times.

Before Prohibition, Shlitz Brewery owned more property in Chicago than anyone else, except the Catholic church.

Over 19 million adults drink wine at least once a week.

Approximately 200 million barrels of beer were sold in the year 2000.

In the 1800's liquor was a Beautician's secret! Yes, rum was considered an excellent product for cleaning hair and keeping it healthy, and brandy was believed to strengthen the hair roots.

No alcohol beverage can be over 190% proof (95% alcohol). Because at any higher proof, the beverage will draw moisture from the air and self-dilute.

In Medieval times, an alcohol beverage was often served with the English's breakfast.

Old U.S. laws required that alcohol containers be concealed in public by being placed in paper bags or packages by liquor stores. This gave us the names package stores that sell package goods.

The actual term for the fear of alcohol is methyphobia.

The term for an abnormal or insatiable craving for alcohol is dipsomania.

All fruit juices, and many vegetables, contain alcohol.

English inns were once required to pay a tax known as a scot. Customers who left town to drink in rural taverns were said to be drinking scot free.

When consumed with boiled or pickled eggs, beer sometimes causes a malfunction of the olfactory senses.

The oldest recipe for beer in Europe was found in the ruins of the Spanish village of Geno, and dates back more than 3,000 years.

Hippocrates recommended prescribing beer for its tranquilizing properties and because it quenches thirst, eases speech, and strengthens the heart and gums. (At least, he thought so!)


Emperor Carlos V was the first beer importer, and one of its most illustrious aficionados. It is said that, even in his retirement in Yuste, he kept a Flemish brewer in his reduced entourage.

Chatbir Zoo in Punjab State, India, serves brandy to its bears to keep them warm in the winter.

In Kentucky, you are considered sober until you cannot hold onto the ground. (Can you imagine the DUI tests in that state?)

In the mid 1970s, Australians were the third biggest per capita beer drinkers, after Germans and Belgians. In the 1990s, though, they weren't even in the top ten!

The tune of The Star Spangled Banner was derived from Anacreon, a British drinking song.

John Wagner, who had a small brewery in back of his house on St. John Street in Philadelphia, brewed the first lager in the United States. He brought the first lager yeast to the US from a brewery Bavaria.

Beer is great for controlling slugs in your garden! You can make a slug trap by pouring 2-5 cm of beer in cottage cheese, margarine, or other similar containers and placing them near plants prone to slug damage with the rims 3 cm above the surface of the soil. (No word on what brand of beer that slugs prefer, though.)

Here's to your health: Both red wine and dark beer are rich in flavonoids, which are believed to have a positive effect on blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Here's to your health!

We already know red wine may protect your heart. But a recent study by a Harvard pathologist showed that resveratrol, an antioxidant in red wine, may increase the lifespan of yeast cells. It significantly lengthens the lives of fruit flies, too. Will it work in humans?

Beer glasses are by far the most common weapon of assault in Britain according to Jonathan Shepherd, a surgeon at University of Wales College of Medicine and an expert on alcohol-related assault.

The strongest alcohol is Estonian liquor distilled from potatoes at 98% alcohol.
Alcohol features in almost a third of all UK divorce petitions, which means that the drinking habits of one or both partners have contributed to the bust up.

9 people die every week on UK roads in drink related accidents half of them innocent victims.

Alcohol is believed to feature as reason behind 25% of school exclusions in the UK.

$200 million is spent each year on alcohol advertising.

Alcohol-related absenteeism and poor work performance costs British industry more than £2 billion a year.

Researchers have determined that 1 acre of potatoes can yield 1,200 gallons of ethyl alcohol in a year.

Recent reports suggest that almost 50% of all British teenagers know how to buy alcohol that has been smuggled into the country.

In olden times, saloons offered free lunches, most of which were overly salted, forcing the thirsty diner to buy an alcoholic drink. Many bars now offer peanuts and salty snacks for the same reason.

34% of men drink and drive compared with 23% of women.

39% of pedestrians who were killed in traffic accidents had drunk more than the legal limit for driving.

A traditional drink found throughout Andean countries is chicha, made from fermented maize or rice. The fermentation process is augmented by human saliva. Chicha makers chew the ingredients and spit them back in the pot to brew.

Even below the legal limit, young drivers are five times more likely to have an accident than if they haven't been drinking.

In 1994, 57900 people were found guilty or cautioned for offences of drunkenness. The peak age of offenders was 18.

13000 violent incidents take place outside UK bars, pubs or licensed premises every week - most are alcohol related.


In the 1500’s lead cups were used to drink ale. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days and people would take them for dead then prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days, and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up; hence the custom of holding a wake. People realized they had been burying people alive when some coffins were dug up and scratch marks were found inside, so they tied a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin, up through the ground, and tied it to a bell. It was actually someone’s job to sit out in the graveyard all night on the graveyard shift to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.