Alcohol-caffeine drinks get attention
By Paul Vang
Montana Tavern Times
Critics Target Alcohol-Caffeine Drinks
State Attorneys General and health advocacy groups are, according to the Wall Street Journal, taking a close look at drinks that mix caffeine with alcohol, a small but fast-growing beverage category among younger drinkers.
According to the report, some scientific research indicates that people who consume alcohol with caffeine may increase their risk of alcohol-related injuries or other problems.
A Wake Forest University study indicated that people who mix the two, such as Red Bull with vodka, were more likely than people who drank non-caffeinated alcoholic beverages, to experience negative consequences such as an alcohol-related injury, getting into a car with a drunken driver, or being taken advantage of sexually.
Afraid of Swine Flu? Drink Whisky!
The scientific research might be a bit sketchy, but it's hard not to like the conclusion.
Reuters news service reports that Russian soccer fans heading to Wales for World Cup qualifying matches in Wales this September have been told to drink whisky to ward off swine flu.
Alexander Shprygin, head of the soccer team's supporting organization, told fans, “We urge our fans to drink a lot of Welsh whisky as a form of disinfection. That should cure all symptoms of the disease. Russian fans don't fear anything or anybody, so this virus will not stand in our way of supporting the team.”
Nothing like that old team spirit – or is it spirits?
White House Beer Summit
When Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambridge, Massachusetts policeman James Crowley had their now-famous brouhaha, President Obama invited the two men to come to the White House for a beer and a chat.
So, what kind of beer did they drink? As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the president's favorite beer is Bud Light. The favorites of the two guests are Red Stripe and Blue Moon.
The only problem with the beer summit is that all three of those beers are made by foreign-owned companies. Bud Light is produced by Belgian-owned Anheuser-Busch InBev. Red Stripe is produced by London-based Diageo, and Blue Moon by a joint venture in which London-based SABMiller has a majority stake.
Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., producer of Samuel Adams beers, criticized “the foreign domination of something so basic and important to our culture as beer.” Genesee Brewery of Rochester New York issued a statement congratulating the White House for serving beer, but added, “We just hope the next time the President has a beer, he chooses an American beer, made by American workers, and an American-owned brewery like Genessee.”
Rita Wert, president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, expressed disappointment that the president served beer. “There are so many other beverages he could have chosen that would have worked as well.”
My observation is that if the president, like all politicians, is looking for voter support, he'll have a lot more luck talking to beer drinkers than to WCTU fans.
Glenfiddich Releases 50-year-old Whisky
William Grant and Sons Distillery, makers of Glenfiddich whisky, released a 50-year-old whisky that will sell for £10,000 (US$16,000) a bottle, making it the world's second-most expensive whisky.
As reported by Bloomberg's, Glenfiddich 50 Year Old will be released in 500 individually numbered, hand-blown glass bottles adorned with Scottish silver and packaged in leather-bound cases.
A 60-year-old Macallan previously set the record in 1991 when it sold for £6,250. Forbes now lists the value of that bottling at an estimated £23,000, making it the world's most expensive whisky.
A spokesman for the Scotch Whisky Association predicts, “A few might drink it, but I suspect most would keep it for the investment.”
If that 60-year-old Macallan is any indication, it's a safe bet that 50-year-old Glenfiddich would be a better investment than anything I've got in my IRA fund. At least, if the market goes bust you still have one heckuva bottle of whisky with which to console yourself.
Recession Hard on Restaurants
The total number of restaurants in the U.S. shrunk during this past year, according to Nation's Restaurant News.
Independently owned and small chain restaurants took the biggest hit, especially independently owned fine dining restaurants, which had a 7 percent loss in numbers, followed by smaller family-dining chains which had a 6 percent loss.
Susan Kleutsch of the market research firm, The NPD Group, commented, “The recession appears to have weeded out restaurants performing poorly prior to the economic downturn, and this seems most true for independents and smaller chains that are likely having a hard time competing with the resources and marketing power of major chains.”
That has to be comforting for one of those operators in those groups, to know that they didn't just fail – they got weeded out.
Diageo Controversies
We could easily fill this column every month by just reporting the happenings at the world's largest alcoholic beverage producer, Diageo.
This past month, however, the news has primarily been about a controversial decision to close a Johnnie Walker bottling plant in Kilmarnock, Scotland and a distillery near Glasgow, potentially putting 900 workers out of work, or making those workers “redundant,” as they say in the U.K.
At the same time Diageo announced plans to make those workers redundant, they also increased marketing spending by some £90 million.
What really got some people riled up, however, was the disclosure by the London Daily Record that Diageo spent thousands of pounds sending executives to South Africa to follow the fortunes of a British/Irish rugby team that Diageo sponsors.
According to the report, Diageo flew the execs first class, put them up in five-star hotels while, at the same time, other executives back in London prepared the notifications to close plants in Scotland.
An angry Kilmarnock worker said, “By the end of the year I could be lucky to have a roof over my head, never mind a five-star hotel. It makes me really angry. They obviously have money to spend for some things.”
Diageo also sponsored a plush outing during the British Open golf tournament, which the Daily Mail described as a “five star champagne jaunt” to Tunberry, just 25 miles from the Kilmarnock plant.
Subsequently, Diageo announced that the company canceled its Johnnie Walker Classic Golf Tournament in Asia for 2010. Scotland's Daily Record cited a source saying that Diageo does not want to be seen as spending “lavish amounts” on the competition in light of its plans to cut 10 percent of its Scottish workforce, largely by closing the Kilmarnock plant. A Diageo spokesman said the move to cancel the tournament “is not related to Scotland.”
Diageo later announced that the company would create 400 jobs at a new facility in Fife, including jobs for some of the workers about to be made redundant at Kilmarnock. The Daily Record, however, noted that it would involve either a transfer or a 200-mile daily commute. In addition, many of the workers would get only six- to nine-month contracts.
The controversies about these jobs in Scotland are not about to go away quietly. The latest wrinkle was a call to boycott Guinness beer (a Diageo product) for one day in August. The trick will be to find some alternative beer in the British Isles that isn't made by a Diageo company.
Prohibition Ends in Rusk, Tex.
It took just 76 years since Prohibition was repealed in 1933, but voters in Rusk, Tex., finally voted to end the drought. On July 28, beer trucks came to town to stock grocery and convenience stores to give local citizens the first legal opportunity to buy beer and wine in over 90 years.
Now, that's a day to mark on the calendar!