New Scientist
Booze myths: The truth at the bottom of the bottle
31 December 2010 by Roger Highfield
MARTINIS SHOULD BE SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED
TRUE - for most people's taste. James Bond ordered his vodka
martinis "shaken, not stirred", but is there really any difference?
Yes there is, according to a team at the University of Western
Ontario in Canada.
They studied the ability of the classic martini, made with gin and
vermouth, to deactivate hydrogen peroxide, which is a potent
source of free radicals. They showed that martinis were more
effective at deactivating hydrogen peroxide than their main
ingredients alone (BMJ, vol 310, p 1600). For reasons that are not
clear, the shaken mix was twice as effective as the stirred mix.
But does the resulting cocktail tastes better? One suggestion is
that an agitated martini contains more microscopic shards of ice,
giving it a more pleasant texture or "mouthfeel". However, the
most likely reason for Bond's preference seems to be because it
helps reduce the taste of residual oil left over when vodka is made
from potatoes, the base vegetable used at the time Ian Fleming
wrote his books.
Experiments on the Human Subject on the Poisonous Properties of the Impurities
in Potato-brandy.
Brockhaus. Central. f. öffentl. Gesundheitspfl. 146, 1882 ; Chem. Central. 669,
1882.
In:—
The Journal of The Society of Chemical Industry
4 [2] 187. April 29, 1883.
The experiments were made with six of the substances constituting the chief
impurities of potato-brandy — aldehyde, paraldehyde, acetal, propyl-, isobutyl-,
and amylalcohols. The author took these substances in moderation, either in the
morning, mixed with water, or in the afternoon or evening, with wine or god old
cognac. The aldehyde acted, first, as a violent irritant on the mucus membrane,
and, secondly, upon the nervous system. The symptoms pass away quickly. The
slightly-intoxicating effect of young wine seems to the author to possibly arise
from the presence of aldehyde. The action of paraldehyde and acetal is of a
similar nature, but not so transitory. The effects are felt on the following day. The
above-mentioned alcohols caused a burning sensation in the mouth, heat in the
head, pain in the forehead, a suffocating sensation, sickness, and intoxication,
the intensity of the symptoms increasing with the molecular weight of the alcohol.
Amyl alcohol showed its self to be very violent poison,. Altogether the
conclusions was arrived that the impurities of potato-brandy exerted a much
more active influence on the human organism than ethyl alcohol. From his
experiments, and the arguments entered into fully in the original paper, the
author believe that the bad effects of the use of alcohol appear most intensely
and most quickly from the misuse of bad brandy, and that it is the impurities of
the latter which play the chief part ; but that at the same time solutions of ethyl
alcohol, such as we have in beer, wine, and good brandy, when taken in excess
during a considerable period, injure the human frame, and the more rapidly and
violently the stronger the solution. The practical lessons to be drawn from the
observations are that (1) the sale and retailing of impure brandies should be
forbidden. (2) Since the present known methods of purifying cheap brandies are
imperfect, and since, further, pure ethyl alcohol in a concentrated form is
injurious to human organism, the use of potato-brandy as an article of food or
luxury should be opposed.
djh
----
The Chymists are a strange Class of Mortals, impelled
by an incomprehensible Impulse to take their Pleasure
amid Smoke and Vapour, Fume and Flame, Poison and
Poverty - Yet among all these Evils, I seem to live so
sweetly that may I die if I would change places with the
Persian King!
Johann Beccher
Physica Subterranea, 1703
[Edited on 21-6-2011 by The WiZard is In]
[Edited on 21-6-2011 by The WiZard is In]hissingnoise - 21-6-2011 at 12:37
Ah post in haste .... die by spell checker. Ever the vicissitudes of English spelling!!
The Analogue Person never lacks for a reference —
Tongue twisters
In search of the world’s hardest language
The Economist [The WiZard is In - dobe a subscriber.]
Dec 17th 2009 http://www.economist.com/node/15108609
A CERTAIN genre of books about English extols the language’s
supposed difficulty and idiosyncrasy. “Crazy English”, by an
American folk-linguist, Richard Lederer, asks “how is it that your
nose can run and your feet can smell?”. Bill Bryson’s “Mother
Tongue: English and How It Got That Way” says that “English is full
of booby traps for the unwary foreigner…Imagine being a
foreigner and having to learn that in English one tells a lie but the
truth.”
English spelling may be the most idiosyncratic, although French
gives it a run for the money with 13 ways to spell the sound “o”: o,
ot, ots, os, ocs, au, aux, aud, auds, eau, eaux, ho and ö. “Ghoti,”
as wordsmiths have noted, could be pronounced “fish”: gh as in
“cough”, o as in “women” and ti as in “motion”. But spelling is
ancillary to a language’s real complexity; English is a relatively
simple language, absurdly spelled.
