What Are You Drinking?

[Toinho]

On 15/06/2021 at 22:33, Eco said:

Water and coffee.

I gave up all forms of alcohol in March, just simply for health reasons and I prefer to wake up clear headed instead of groggy, and so far, I can certainly tell the difference. I know it's not for everyone, but it's certainly been nice not having any drink in me.

I only did just under 3 months no alcohol but certainly felt a difference.

I haven’t been drunk since January. My body can’t handle it anymore, however just had a small glass of local whiskey. 

[Ploughendplonker]

Not a huge drinker, but always liked a brown and mild, although the one pub that I knew did it now doesn't. 

 

[Coma]

Went to a Mexican restaurant over the weekend.  I usually drink Modelo Especial with Mexican but I had a Modelo Negra instead.  I've been missing out... it was fantastic.

[Coma]

König Ludwig Weissbier tonight.

[CaaC (John)+]

Fuck it, I have not had a drink since last Saturday night and seeing I have been a teetotaller all week and on a diet tonight I am going to indulge in some beautiful amber nectar, a bottle of white wine PLUS...some whisk(e)y...well...sort of, our son gave me a box of Anthon Berg chocolate liqueurs with a touch of whisk(e)y in them...ROLL OUT THE BARRELL...

[Dr. Gonzo]

I thought I'd contribute to this thread more than I had... but I mostly just drink the same beer so all of my posts in here would be boring as fuck.

[Devil]

Having a few vodkas, been like a monk all week due to work commitments so I'm already feeling a bit pissed.

[Tommy]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I thought I'd contribute to this thread more than I had... but I mostly just drink the same beer so all of my posts in here would be boring as fuck.

Same.

[Eco]

About to pour me a vodka and listen to some tunes. It's Friday night and this week was a shit storm so it's about time to celebrate it's ending. 

Prost!

[nudge+]

I have a bottle of 56% raki to go through. 

[JoshBRFC+]

Had a dozen bottles of Peroni last night and surprisingly feel good this morning. 

Still yet to taste a better lager.

[Eco]

 

Absolutely love a good Märzen

[CaaC (John)+]

 

 

Quote

Bronze Age Babylonians loved beer

Chemical analyses finds Mesopotamian brewing was widespread, and quaffing styles were more varied than thought. Andrew Masterson reports.

The ancient Mesopotamians really didn’t mind a beer, new chemical analysis has shown.

Many Bronze Age textual and pictorial sources attest to the consumption of beer in Mesopotamia – the oft-described “cradle of civilisation” between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the Middle East – from as early as 4000 BCE.

References deciphered from third millennium BCE cuneiform texts show that the Mesopotamians were as sophisticated in their tastes as today’s hipster craft-brew fans, choosing between several different types, including golden beer, sweet dark beer and red beer.

Unambiguous chemical and archaeological evidence, however, has remained scarce. The identification of building remains as breweries, large vats as beer-making pots, and bowls as drinking vessels have been based mostly – say a team of archaeologists led by Elsa Perruchini from the University of Glasgow in Scotland – on “educated guesswork”.

In a paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Perruchini and her colleagues present the results of organic residue analyses performed on a variety of objects recovered from a site called Khani Masi, located along the upper reaches of the Sirwan/Diyala River in what is today the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq. The site dates to between 1500 and 1000 BCE.

The findings not only confirm many of the tentative text-based identifications of breweries and brewing equipment, but also extend considerably the range of vessels used to quaff the results – supplying, in the process, an insight into how drinking culture changed over the centuries.

Just as importantly, the analysis shows definitively that the Mesopotamians used barley as the central ingredient of their beers. While not entirely unexpected, the confirmation was welcome.

After all, brewing has emerged more than once in ancient history, revealing that there is more than one way to make a decent drop. The Chinese, for instance, used rice, and the Peruvians used corn. The ancient Egyptians, like the Mesopotamians, preferred barley – as, indeed, do most modern-day brewers.

This last fact was particularly fortuitous for Perruchini and her colleagues, because they were able to use samples of modern beers as controls. Every chemical detected in the archaeological artefacts – such as benzoic, butanedioic, pimelic, suberic or azelaic acids, for example – that was also found in the modern beers sharpened the possibility that the scientists were detecting the molecular echoes of an ancient brew.

Mass spectroscopy, for instance, detected a triterpene called squalene. By itself, it could have come from human skin, but its presence with many other beer-related chemicals increased the likelihood that it derived from another common source: germinated barley grains.{%recommended 1802%}

The scientists’ painstaking analyses confirmed that several vats and large vessels were indeed used for the brewing and drinking of beer, in line with textual and pictorial sources. However, they also discovered that the good folk of Khani Masi were much more flexible – or a lot less fussy – when it came to beer-drinking habits than previously thought.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that for the Mesopotamians drinking was a communal affair.

“Most studies of ancient Mesopotamian beer have associated its consumption with medium to large jars, from which the beverage was collectively sipped using long straws, sometimes with metal filters attached to the top,” the researchers note.

There is considerable iconographic and archaeological evidence to suggest that the Mesopotamians owned hand-held drinking vessels, ranging from small cups capable of holding between 100 and 200 millilitres (about the volume of a glass of wine) and larger “Kassite” goblets, which held about 600 millilitres.

The standard assumption was that these smaller vessels were used for drinking wine – an individual rather than shared practice.

Analyses by Perruchini and colleagues contradict that conventional position. Results suggest that they too were used to drink beer.

This, they say, indicates a change in cultural practice.

“In social terms the association of both small to very small drinking cups and the medium-sized solid-footed goblets with beer suggests a shift from late third and early second millennium BCE collective beer drinking experiences to more individualised ones,” they write.

It’s a change that invites further investigation, not merely because of the move away from sucking beer out of a barrel through a straw, but also for geo-political reasons. The Khani Masi region sat at the edge of the Mesopotamian influence, next to the Upper Diyala River valley – an area as yet little understood in Bronze Age terms.

In this context it is possible that beer three-and-half-thousand years ago – as now, sometimes – also functioned as a kind of diplomatic ice-breaker.

“This points to the selective and no doubt socially strategic local adoption of Babylonian drinking paraphernalia and practices into an otherwise distinct west Iranian cultural sphere,” the researchers conclude.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/archaeology/new-findings-confirm-that-bronze-age-babylonians-really-loved-beer/

 

[CaaC (John)+]

This is going to go down a treat, saved it for a special occasion and today was a special occasion, me and the wife have just watched our eldest grandson, Connor, 15, have his first amateur boxing match in Motherwell in a tournament on a YouTube stream and won on points...to you grandson  

 

[Stan]

Red Leg Spiced Rum which I got for my birthday, with a bit of coke. 

[CaaC (John)+]

Wine drinker myself but our son has arrived for a wee visit and drink and he bought me this (below), not sure if I will enjoy it or not as it's a pale ale, anybody tried one of these before?

 

[CaaC (John)+]

'Home Alone' tonight as the wife is away around our daughters for a pre Birthday bash drink with ladies only, our son is now away as he is babysitting his partners...DOG  while she is working.

Saying all that I will be sitting here relaxed, watching films, and babysitting...BOOZE  

[CaaC (John)+]

In the mood for a bottle or 2 of Australian wine 

[Spike]

On 26/10/2022 at 11:35, CaaC (John) said:

In the mood for a bottle or 2 of Australian wine 

Chardonnay doesn’t agree with me

[CaaC (John)+]

4 hours ago, Spike said:

Chardonnay doesn’t agree with me

I can drink that or Pinot Grigio, me and the wife love the Hardys range of wines, the wifes favourite is Crest, though.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

 

A porter from Principal Brewing, a local brewery. $80 a case but god I love porters. In the perfect sweet spot, stouts are too heavy. 

[CaaC (John)+]

Another Aussie wine from South Australia 

[Spike]

I was given tickets to a festival for barrel aged beers. I drank far too much.

[CaaC (John)+]

My wife's big sis called in today for a visit and gave me a bottle of red for Christmas, nice one 

[CaaC (John)+]

Friday night and time to relax, a nice bottle of Australian Chardonnay white wine, tv, laptop, bliss.