New at Reason

May 28, 2004

Jacob Sullum says we must eliminate flavor, for the children.

Comments

|5.28.04 @ 1:13AM|#

I can't believe Sullum was foolish enough to tempt reductio creep in the final paragraphs. Within three years, day-old room-temperature dark roast decaffinated will be the only coffee you can buy without a prescription.

|5.28.04 @ 1:18AM|#

Mark, have you tried cider (apple, pear, et al)? Mmmm. Blackthorn and Strongbow (both English) are good and about 6% ABV.

Highway|5.28.04 @ 1:51AM|#

I never drank anything in college, even to about age 30, because beer and wine taste horrible to me. Then I tried Smirnoff Ice and its ilk, and it's really enjoyable. Glad to know I'm just a teenager.

Mark, don't forget that when everyone reaches that magical age, they'll know everything about using whatever proscribed substance responsibly! Don't worry about how, they just will.

Nicholas|5.28.04 @ 2:18AM|#

Continuing the trend, all of the better-tasting wines and spirits must be removed from the market, leaving only the worst rot-gut imaginable. That way, nobody will actually _enjoy_ drinking: they'll only be doing it to get drunk. In fact, it would logically be consistent to remove legal limits on alcohol content, allowing near-fatal dosage in the shortest possible time. Eliminate all the "gateway" drugs altogether and just encourage the instant overdose.

Hmmm. From the point of view of those who don't drink or smoke (or toke, or ...), this almost makes sense, doesn't it?

|5.28.04 @ 2:32AM|#

Nicholas, and once the good wine is removed this is what you will have left:

http://www.bumwine.com/

(Hat Tip to Adrian at RPPI)

|5.28.04 @ 2:42AM|#

As one who does not like most alcohol, I second the recommendation for a nice cider. mmm! I also just discovered a smooth, earthy drink called Bitters. It is 45% alcohol, but does not taste like alcohol at all. Mixed with ginger ale, the British use it as a home remedy for an upset stomach?!

And don't forget, you don't have to drink weed! ;)

|5.28.04 @ 2:47AM|#

Just make sure not to suck in any bong-water.

|5.28.04 @ 2:56AM|#

I say we eliminate the children to save the flavor.

|5.28.04 @ 3:00AM|#

Remember a mantra of your favorite lefty/statist: Slippery slope arguments are ridiculous.

Tobacco to some extent is used by terrorists and may fund terrorism. Questioning this proposal is an un-American violation of PATRIOT. We're at war, people!

[nod to thoreau]

|5.28.04 @ 3:25AM|#

One traditional beverage that I do like is mead. I guess it comes from being a gamer. There is a meadry in nothern Wisconsin that distributes to some of the local homebrewing and health food stores. It's good stuff.

I've even been tempted to start brewing it myself.

|5.28.04 @ 3:26AM|#

I'm actually in favor of tastelessness.

|5.28.04 @ 3:32AM|#

Speaking of gamers. I'd love to show Jacob's article to some of my Goth friends who hang out a the friendly local game store I frequent. If the possibility of losing their beloved clove cigarettes doesn't stir these largely apathetic souls to political action, nothing will.

|5.28.04 @ 3:32AM|#

Um, so what's to stop "kids" from adding flavor? Rasberry Stoli and those new flavors of Sprite is really good. My sister and girlfriend got just as drunk off that as I did off shots the other night.....

Not to mention you could probably just add flavor syrup to whatever you're drinking to hide the flavor.

|5.28.04 @ 4:21AM|#

Madog... SHHHHHHHH! Not so loud, Teddy will hear you. I like vanilla flavor syrup in my lattes.

|5.28.04 @ 4:27AM|#

I'll say this much for the bill in question: It gives me one more reason to loathe and dispise the Kennedys, that degenerate clan of statist, ward-heeling, wannabe aristocrats.

|5.28.04 @ 4:44AM|#

Pouring syrup in beer to flavor it is popular in, of all places, Germany. Putting the flavor in prior to bottling was against the Reinheitsgebot, so the syrup is an aftermarket addition. See:

http://www.germanbeerguide.co.uk/berliner.html

Many Belgian or Belgian-style beers have fruit flavors, such as framboise. I like these locally brewed examples - Belgian Red and Raspberry Tart!

MMmmmmmmmmm.... Beer!

Kevin

http://www.newglarusbrewing.com/beers.html

|5.28.04 @ 5:10AM|#

I used to get micro-dot acid on sugar cubes. Took the sting out of it.

|5.28.04 @ 5:15AM|#

The Irish have "Guinness and black" -- sounds redundant, but actually is short for blackcurrant, here meaning a splash of Ribena concentrate. Laughably girly (perhaps on the order of what a Shirley Temple would be in the US), but the only way I can get the stuff down.

Larry A|5.28.04 @ 7:37AM|#

Hard to remember as far back as when I was too young to drink, but wasn't there something called Everclear that had no taste at all?

That's the ticket!

Or are these guys related to the tofu salespersons?

Robotica Erotica|5.28.04 @ 9:56AM|#

Everclear tastes like rubbing alcohol, it's grain alcohol, 95% ABV, that shit is nasty.

|5.28.04 @ 12:14PM|#

I'm pushing 30 and I mainly drink "alcopops" for one reason: I can't stand the taste of beer, hard liqour, and most wines. However, I still want to be able to enjoy the effects of alcohol without having to deal with the nasty taste.

Chalk it up to our puritanical nation to think that somehow forbidding "adult" products up to a certain magical age of responsibility will somehow eliminate it's use by children. In the end, everyone suffers.

|5.28.04 @ 12:44PM|#

And after we stop flavor, the next thing we must stop is acquired tastes!

|5.28.04 @ 12:50PM|#

Foul tasting heroin doesn't seem to stop people from using it.

I only drink alcohol because it's more convenient than taking it rectally.

|5.29.04 @ 2:12AM|#

"I've even been tempted to start brewing it myself."

It's easy. The hardest is part is waiting for the stuff to age. Plus if you don't use sulfites to clean the equipment you get a real clean buzz, no hangovers (within reason).

|5.29.04 @ 6:39AM|#

Robotica Erotica,

Are you kidding? Everclear is the take-no-prisoners tipple for those who know where they're going and want to get there fast.

Douglas Fletcher,

What is your experience with adding yeast nutrients? Do you find that they increase the likelihood of hangover?

James Anderson Merritt|5.29.04 @ 8:30AM|#

Nicholas says, "Continuing the trend, all of the better-tasting wines and spirits must be removed from the market, leaving only the worst rot-gut imaginable. That way, nobody will actually _enjoy_ drinking: they'll only be doing it to get drunk."

George Orwell said (in "1984"), "He took down from the shelf a bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white label marked VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese ricespirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved himself for a shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine.

"Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes. The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The next moment, however, the burning in his belly died down and the world began to look more cheerful."

Elsewhere in the book, on the other hand, Orwell talked about gin flavored with "saccharin and cloves," although I can't imagine that any flavor could prevent the nitric acid and rubber club experience of Orwell's VG, so what could the point have been?

In any case, I think it is encouraging that even Orwell, at his most pessimistic, could not imagine the end of flavor in the world of Big Brother. True, the choice of flavor was often the choice between Bush and Kerry, but it was a choice.

If you'd like full-bodied flavor of a different kind, the Libertarian Party convention is being telecast by C-SPAN this weekend. I saw the Presidential debates, live, earlier this afternoon, and I believe they will replay that program at 2AM ET late Saturday night/early Sunday morning (11PM Saturday, Pacific). The nominating speeches and vote will be at 9AM ET on Sunday (6AM Pacific). For more info and schedule changes, see www.c-span.org. For someone turned off by the scripted annointments of the GOP and Demo conventions, the LP convention is like Jolt Cola: all the flavor and full sweetness of liberty, and twice the caffeine.

|5.29.04 @ 9:35AM|#

"Douglas Fletcher,

What is your experience with adding yeast nutrients? Do you find that they increase the likelihood of hangover?"

No observations one way or the other -- don't usually use it. I'm pretty unscientific the way I make wine, I just keep things clean and pretty much improvise after that. Adding discipline to the recipe takes out all the fun for me.

|5.29.04 @ 9:36AM|#

"Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes. The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The next moment, however, the burning in his belly died down and the world began to look more cheerful."


Sounds like Everclear to me....

|5.29.04 @ 9:41AM|#

Douglas Fletcher,

I'm sorry - I thought you were speaking of beer brewing awhile ago. I asked because I seem to use yeast nutrients very often due to stuck fermentation, but wonder if they might be contributing to my hangovers (couldn't be the amount - naaahh).

Maureen|5.29.04 @ 11:47AM|#

On the bit about caffeine being a gateway drug--since coffee's so cool right now, aren't a large percentage of the kids who don't drink coffee Mormon? I'd feel better about the study if it controlled for religion.

|6.1.04 @ 9:51AM|#

"It's just a happy coincidence that Philip Morris, one of the bill's main backers, does not manufacture cigarettes with any of the prohibited flavors�although it does make menthol cigarettes, which are specifically exempted from the ban."

It makes it so hard to side with tobacco companies when they pull shit like this. PM is deliberately sleeping with the enemy to kiss its ass and increase their market share. Maybe I won't feel as bad when they are litigated out of existence.

If we absolutely have to ban something, let's keep the cloves and get rid of menthols, okay? That shit makes me want to fucking puke.