December 29, 2007
Chinese liquor firms fight ban on boozy lunches
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Liquor makers in China are demanding that a city regulation barring public servants and Communist Party officials from the Chinese version of a three martini lunch be revoked, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The regulation, launched in January in the city of Xinyang in Henan province, is illegal, according to several of the province's producers of "baijiu", China's pungent answer to vodka that is ubiquitous at banquets where toasts are downed by the shot.
"They are preparing to ask the legal affairs committee of the standing committee of the provincial People's Congress and the government's legal institutions office to react, requesting that the rule be revised or revoked," the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily said.
Liquor, beer and, increasingly, wine are common at China's lunch tables, including at business luncheons where hosts treat guests to lavish, multi-course feasts that can last hours.
Public servants and their lunch partners apparently comprised a large part of Henan's "baijiu" market, and sales at some liquor companies dropped by as much as a third in the wake of the regulation, the newspaper said.
The Henan liquor producers' association put the issue on its 2008 agenda.
Posted by ronnie at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2007
Husband pulls over his deputy wife twice
ELKO, Nev. - An off-duty Elko County sheriff's deputy was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol after her husband, a fellow deputy, pulled her over.
Charlotte Moore, 36, a jail deputy, was off duty driving her 2004 Pontiac Grand Am on Saturday when she was pulled over by her husband, Elko County Sheriffs Deputy Mike Moore, a police report said.
In two separate accounts of the incident, Mike Moore indicated she initially was pulled over for either speeding or making an illegal turn.
She allegedly left before being administered a portable breathalyzer test, the Elko Daily Free Press reported.
Mike Moore pulled her over again and called for backup. He left shortly after another officer arrived.
Mike Moore was following procedure when he asked for backup, Elko County Undersheriff Rocky Gonzalez told the newspaper.
Neither Mike nor Charlotte Moore was available for comment Monday. She reportedly had been drinking approximately two hours earlier at a downtown business group's wine walk, the newspaper said.
Charlotte Moore was released on Sunday and placed on paid administrative leave.
Posted by ronnie at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2007
Just add water - students invent alcohol powder
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch students have developed powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors.
The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gramme packets that cost 1-1.5 euros ($1.35-$2).
Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-colored and -flavored drink with just 3 percent alcohol content.
"We are aiming for the youth market. They are really more into it because you can compare it with Bacardi-mixed drinks," 20-year-old Harm van Elderen told Reuters.
Van Elderen and four classmates at Helicon Vocational Institute, about an hour's drive from Amsterdam, came up with the idea as part of their final-year project.
"Because the alcohol is not in liquid form, we can sell it to people below 16," said project member Martyn van Nierop.
The legal age for drinking alcohol and smoking is 16 in the Netherlands.
In Germany, alcopops -- sweet drinks containing alcohol and in powder form -- caused quite a stir when launched on to the market. Alcohol powder, classified as a flavoring, was sold in the United States three years ago.
The students said companies interested in making the product commercially could avoid taxes because the alcohol was in powder form. A number of companies are interested, they said.
Posted by ronnie at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2006
Milwaukee is named 'Drunkest City'
MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee has been ranked by Forbes.com as "America's Drunkest City" on a list of 35 major metropolitan areas ranked for their drinking habits.
Forbes said Tuesday it used numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to rank cities in five areas: state laws, number of drinkers, number of heavy drinkers, number of binge drinkers and alcoholism.
Minneapolis-St. Paul was ranked second overall; followed by Columbus, Ohio; Boston; Austin, Texas; Chicago; Cleveland; Pittsburgh and then Philadelphia and Providence, R.I., in a tie for ninth.
Rick DeMeyer, 28, said Wednesday as he was celebrating his birthday at G-Daddy's BBC he could understand Milwaukee's ranking.
"I have had people stay with me from London and Chicago, and they can't get over how much we drink," he said. "I guess we do."
But officials at Visit Milwaukee, the area's convention and visitors bureau, contend that the city has come a long way in ridding itself of its beer-guzzling image.
Milwaukeeans have plenty of other ways to entertain themselves without drinking alcohol, said Dave Fantle, a spokesman for the group. He noted a new convention center and baseball park had been built and the Milwaukee Art Museum expanded in recent years.
Posted by ronnie at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2006
Woman Gets Beer From Her Kitchen Faucet
OSLO, Norway - It almost seemed like a miracle to Haldis Gundersen when she turned on her kitchen faucet this weekend and found the water had turned into beer.
Two flights down, employees and customers at the Big Tower Bar were horrified when water poured out of the beer taps.
By an improbable feat of clumsy plumbing, someone at the bar in Kristiandsund, western Norway, had accidentally hooked the beer hoses to the water pipes for Gundersen's apartment.
"We had settled down for a cozy Saturday evening, had a nice dinner, and I was just going to clean up a little," Gundersen, 50, told The Associated Press by telephone Monday. "I turned on the kitchen faucet and beer came out."
However, Gundersen said the beer was flat and not tempting, even in a country where a half-liter (pint) can cost about 25 kroner ($3.75) in grocery stores.
Per Egil Myrvang, of the local beer distributor, said he helped bartenders reconnect the pipes by telephone.
"The water and beer pipes do touch each other, but you have to be really creative to connect them together," he told local newspapers.
Gundersen joked about having the pub send up free beer for her next party.
"But maybe it would be easier if they just invited me down for a beer," she said.
Posted by ronnie at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)