Photo By: Sabrina Modelle

One of the hottest trends in drinking today comes from one of the coolest desserts out there.  Several high profile eateries and bars from around the country are now serving up alcohol-infused ice cream, and it’s every bit as delicious as you can imagine.  In combining two of the best vices known to humanity, what’s not to love?

In San Francisco, the Mission’s most popular dessert destination is Humphry Slocombe (2790 Harrison Street). Known for their eclectic array of inventive flavors, it was one of their original sinful concoctions that helped put them on the map: Secret Breakfast–bourbon ice cream mixed with cornflakes.  And while you’d have to eat a whole bunch of this boozy confection in order to notice a significant buzz, all it takes is one taste in order to enjoy the oaky and smoky characteristics that define barrel-aged bourbon.

Down in Los Angeles, a newcomer appropriately named the Drunken Udder is making a splash with an entire line of alcohol-infused goodness. Boasting such imaginative creations as Saffron Candied Ginger SoCo, and Tequila Vanilla Bean with Toasted Pepita Praline, Southern Californians are all abuzz over these diabolical desserts.  The Dirty Elvis is a must-have, served up at the W Hotel in West Hollywood.

In the East Coast, Max and Mina’s (7126 Main Street) of Queens dishes out several varieties of spiked specialties, including beer, merlot, and champagne ice creams.  Over in the West Village of Manhattan, dessert-lovers go gaga over the Johnnie Walker Black Label Gelato at Cones (272 Bleecker Street).  Even at $15 for a serving, it’s always in high-demand.  If you fancy yourself a scotch drinker it will definitely be worth a taste even for just the novel experience of tasting Black Label with the smooth texture of homemade ice cream.

Alcohol-enriched ice cream is a treat that we can all sink our teeth into.  And being that desserts and drinking our two of my favorite (and only) vices on the planet, I sure hope that this trend is here to stay.

What follows is a basic science primer for the recreational drinker.

The Basics
Here it is. Alcohol in a nutshell: C₂H₅OH. Two carbon atoms, five hydrogen atoms and a hydroxyl (oxygen-hydrogen) cluster, and that’s the whole shebang. As chemicals go, it’s very simple, much simpler than heroin or cannabis, or any other intoxicant. It is so simple, in fact, that some chemists refer to it, rather rudely, as a “stupid” molecule. Technically speaking, the stuff we enjoy putting in our tummies is “ethyl alcohol,” or “ethanol,” while “alcohol” is a general name for a large group of chemicals, of which ethanol is one.

Unless diluted, ethanol is astringent and tastes really nasty. That’s why brewers and distillers add water to their products. Spirits are about 40 percent pure alcohol, wine anywhere from 10-13 percent, and beer only 4-6 percent. Different kinds of tipples get their distinct flavors, not from alcohol in them, but from the other chemicals that are added, or otherwise find their way in, during the production process.

All beverage alcohol comes from the forced or natural breakdown of carbohydrates—starches and glucose, specifically—that occur naturally in the base ingredients, into ethyl alcohol, water and carbon dioxide. The process is called, of course, fermentation, and it is one source of all that is good and right in the world.

Blood Alcohol Content (BAC)
When we drink an adult beverage the alcohol is absorbed into our systems through the stomach and the small intestine. Absorption happens at approximately the same rate in all humans, but can be effected by external circumstances. For instance, as most of us know, food in our stomachs slows the uptake of alcohol, which is why it can be to our benefit to eat a hearty meal before heading out to the club. Chilling the alcohol, as happens with, say, an ice-cold martini, speeds absorption, as does aerating it with carbon dioxide bubbles, as with beer. After alcohol leaves our digestive machinery it makes a brief pit-stop in the liver before making a B-(is-for-Beer)-line, usually within mere minutes, straight for the brain.

So, an individual’s blood alcohol content (BAC) is a rough measure of how much alcohol is absorbed and how quickly (how much we drink) vs. how quickly our bodies process the alcohol (by metabolic breakdown). More seasoned drinkers (those who have given their livers a little exercise) metabolize alcohol much more quickly than occasional, light drinkers. A small portion of the alcohol we absorb is excreted, totally unchanged, in our urine and sweat, and an even smaller portion leaves us in a gaseous form from our lungs. Most, though, is broken down by processes involving the liver, kidneys and time.

Note: if you find yourself in one of those situations where you’ve perhaps gone a sip or two over the line, whatever you do, DO NOT drink coffee. Caffeine doesn’t do diddly-squat to help you metabolize alcohol. Drinking it WILL NOT sober you up. 90 percent of the time it will only make you tipsier. Catch a cab home, have a big glass of water, and go to sleep.

How Dinosaurs Invented Booze
As mentioned previously, beverage alcohol arises from the breakdown of carbohydrates through the action of fermentation-inducing enzymes. In all cases the carbohydrates come from plants—grains, rice, maize, sugar cane, potatoes, and fruits such as apples, grapes, and pears. These are but a handful of the more than 230,000 species of flowering plants called angiosperms. From the phylum Anthophyta, the first angiosperms evolved in the early Cretaceous, about 140 million years ago. Prior to their arrival, the planet was dominated by the far simpler gymnosperms—ferns, cycads, ginkgoes and conifers. Ask someone how plants get it on and they’re likely to answer that bees, or some other type of bug, fly from flower to flower pollinating as they go. Which is entirely true of the angiosperms, and is the main reason for their ubiquity in today’s ecosystems. But how did plants make bouncing baby plants before flowers arrived to make the act look and smell so sexy?

The gymnosperms left their reproductive futures to, literally, the winds of chance, casting their seeds on the breeze and letting them fall where they might. This is not a terribly efficient way to guarantee the arrival of future generations. Angiosperms, conversely, found a far more profitable method of passing their genes forward in time by enlisting the aid of insects, birds, and even some mammals, who are drawn to the plant by scent and the need for food. But what were the evolutionary pressures that forced our leafy friends to radically readdress the methods by which they got jiggy wid it?

The gymnosperms were in trouble. They had to do something, and continuing to impersonate a salad bar wasn’t an option.

Well, basically, they were being eaten. Really, really eaten, to the tune of millions of tons a day, like mashed potatoes at Mike Huckabee’s house. And speaking of dinosaurs (work with me), they were the ones doing all the eating. Dinosaurs waged what amounted to a gustatory war on seed plants. One recently-discovered species of apatasaur stretched over one hundred-twenty feet from head to tail, weighed 80 tons, and traveled in herds. Imagine fifty or sixty of the freakin’ things thundering about the landscape thinking only of dinner.

The gymnosperms were in trouble. They had to do something, and continuing to impersonate a salad bar wasn’t an option. After some genetic trial and error, they arrived at a novel method of reproduction, one that allowed them to stay one step ahead of the voracious dinos. Flowers; pretty, enticing, pollen-filled flowers.

Now, you must be asking what in the blue hell this has to do with alcohol. Here it is, in summary.

1. In the beginning there were no flowers or fruits.

2. Along came the dinosaurs and their prodigious hunger.

3. The plants knew (metaphorical) fear.

4. The plants evolved, and in doing so invented flowers and fruit.

5. Without flowers and fruit there is no alcohol.

6. So…dinosaurs invented beer.

The next time you feel like enjoying a few pints, do it at your local natural history museum. Raise a glass to the bones of the terrible lizards. Do a solid for the progenitors of booze. Toast the angiosperms. (Heh. He said sperm.)

Loo, Loo, Skip to the Loo
Did you ever notice how when you’re out at the tavern tipping a few you don’t have to visit the restroom very often at the beginning of the night, but then when you finally do go, when you break that seal, so to speak, it seems like you have to go about every 15 seconds? No, your bladder didn’t suddenly shrink to the size of a raisin, it’s all the fault of your pituitary gland.

When we drink alcohol, it heads for the brain, where it swarms across the hypothalamus and jumps all over the pituitary gland, blocking the creation of the hormone vasopressin. Without this hormone, our kidneys get all discombobulated and begin dispatching water directly to the bladder instead of reabsorbing it into the body.

And that’s why you have to piddle all the time like a nervous Chihuahua.

Neurology and Ardent Waters
Our brains come from the factory hard-wired to enjoy beverage alcohol in all of its various tastes, colors, and aromas, as well as its physical effects. Neurologists, armed with a fantastic array of technology (EEGs, f-MRI, PET and SPECT scans, etc.), are now able to study the chemical changes induced by alcohol in our brains as they happen.

Alcohol seems to really enjoy hanging out in the limbic system, or the so-called “lizard brain.” Comprised of the hypothalamus, the thalamus, the hippocampus and the amygdala, the limbic area is one of the most evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain, and is largely concerned with emotional activity. Our neurons communicate with one another via chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. When alcohol breaks the blood/brain barrier it triggers the release of these chemicals into our synapses (the “gaps” between neurons), which attach themselves to receptors on the next neuron, and so on, and so on, until the entire limbic region lights up, almost literally, like a Christmas tree. Increasing levels of alcohol leads to a geometric increase in this neuroelectrical activity, eventually resulting in the feeling of euphoria we enjoy so much.

One of the primary neurotransmitters released when we drink is neopinephrine, which is responsible for, among other things, sensations of arousal. Elevated levels of neopinephrine apparently increase our impulsivity, and thus our loss of inhibitions while drinking. Additionally, alcohol consumption decreases energy consumption in the cerebellum, the part of the brain related to motor functions. With the slowing of the cerebellum comes a loss of motor control, which is why we can’t walk a straight line when that friendly officer asks us to.

Drinking alcohol also causes the release of certain opioids which occur naturally in our brains (β-endorphins and the like), which lead to decreased levels of anxiety and can offer temporary pain relief. These exact same opioids are found in poppies, the source of opium.

The above constitutes but a sliver of what scientists have discovered about how our brains respond to alcohol, but the information is compelling enough that we can easily refer to ourselves, in a phrase coined by the archeologist Patrick E. McGovern, as Homo imbibens: Drinking Man.

Morning Head
Most of us have experienced the feeling at one time or another—the headache, the trembling, the nausea, the blurred vision, the promises that we will never drink pomegranate vodka and Diet Coke ever again. Yes, the hangover. Its formal name is veisalgia, from the Norwegian word kveis meaning “uneasiness following debauchery” and the Greek word algia meaning “pain,” and is one of the prices we sometimes pay for going beyond our limits.

But from whence these terrible feelings?

Well, one big cause is dehydration. The human body uses lots more water cleaning alcohol from our systems than the water it takes in as part of whatever we are drinking. Come morning, the body starts searching for water, and when it can’t find it from its usual well, our stomachs, it starts drawing it from our organs, notably the brain. As H₂O is syphoned off, the brain shrinks, putting pressure on the bands that attach it to the inside of the skull, leaving us with a headache. Alcohol also weakens the liver’s stockpile of glucogen. The liver turns it into glucose as part of the blood-cleansing process, and expels it in our urine. Glucogen is a key source of internal energy, and depleting it leads to the general weakness and lack of coordination that comes part and parcel with a hangover.

Scientists working at the University of Southampton School of Biological Sciences recently announced the discovery of a molecule called neuropeptide. This brain-signaling molecule is apparently released in wolf-packs as the brain tries to sober itself up once the consumption of alcohol has ceased (read: the drinker has passed out).

Once we’re saddled with a hangover, what’s to be done about it? The above study also found that the only way of avoiding a hangover is to not drink in the first place (duh), but that if we do find ourselves with a case of that red-eyed malaise, the best curative measure we can take is a blast of good ol’ hair-of-the-dog. Not pleasant, but it’ll get you to work on time.

Conclusion: Life, the Universe and Everything
About 26,000 light years from our little globe, near the center of the Milky Way, there sits one of the true wonders of outer space—a cloud of pure ethyl alcohol, about a billion miles across, called Sagittarius B2N. It is just one of thousands of such alcohol clouds out there, all of them surrounding new star systems.

Some astronomers believe that ethanol molecules, because they have a chemically reactive double bond, might have clumped together, piggybacking on motes of interstellar dust, and, over time, created more and more complex organic compounds, and that these compounds traversed outer space on the heads of comets, eventually coming to rest on planet Earth, thereby “seeding” it with very basic organic life; the so-called “primordial soup.”

The leap from simple microscopic compounds to the majesty of life on Earth is one of galactic proportions, but not altogether impossible.

Biologists hypothesize that sugar fermentation (glycosis) was one of the original, and perhaps the best, forms of creating energy on Earth. Could it be that some 4 billion years ago single-celled microbes ate these simple sugars (and excreted more ethanol and carbon dioxide) thus engendering the world-wide biota in its entirety?

Alcohol as the source of life on Earth?

We may never for certain, but it sure shines a whole new light on going to the liquor store.

Cheers.

(Note: the Author is indebted to the following: Patrick E. McGovern; Stephen Pinker; Griffith Edwards; Roger Smith and Matt Ridley.)

By Gus Vahlkamp (From Issue 7)

When I was younger I believed that the best way to familiarize myself with the features and benefits of any given alcoholic beverage was to keep detailed notes of every drop that passed my lips. Somewhere among the detritus of my career are interred the illegible fruits of my labor: notebooks, cocktail napkins and other fusty ephemera, bearing the names and vitals of this wine or that beer, this spirit or that cocktail recipe, and the obligatory terse criticism which I’m sure I thought was clever at the time.

I’m not a census-taker anymore, at least not boozewise. Where I used to be the guy in the forest counting every tree, now I sit by the river and wait for what it brings me. Mystery, as it turns out, is way more fun than fact.

Of all commercially available spirits, no more profound mystery exists than Chartreuse. My own introduction to it, about 15 years ago, was innocently lowbrow: a friend and I drained a couple shots of it before a freakishly cold April baseball game. I don’t remember the outcome of the game, but I will never forget the herbaceous, almost astringent sweetness of the Chartreuse, or the restorative warmth that spread outward from my belly to my fingers and toes. I shivered through my share of frigid evenings at Candlestick Park, but not that night. Mystery, indeed.

In 1605, the Marechal d’Estrees delivered to the Carthusian Fathers in Paris a manuscript of unknown provenance, which listed the ingredients for an “Elixir of Long Life.” At the time, the Carthusian Order was renowned for its ironwork. The Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, in the Franco-Alpine wilderness above Grenoble, operated eleven blast furnaces at the peak of its productivity. However, stiff competition for the necessary metallurgical resources eventually forced the monks to consider other means of subsistence, and in 1737, Brother Jerome Maubec, the apothecary of the Grande Chartreuse, developed from the original manuscript the practical formula for distilling the elixir, a recipe which is still in use today.

Only one copy of the formula is known to have been made, in 1793. The monks were dispersed by the French Revolution, distillation was halted, and the recipe made its way into the hands of a lay person, a pharmacist in Grenoble who never reproduced the elixir. The manuscript was returned to the monks after his death in the early 19th century. And the elixir has been produced continuously by the monks of the Grande Chartreuse ever since – except for a brief period after the Carthusians were expelled from France (again) in 1903 and set up a distillery in Tarragona, Spain. In 1935 the production facility was moved to the town of Voiron and since 1970 a company called Chartreuse Diffusion has handled the packaging, marketing and selling of the products.

Herein lies the mystery: only three Carthusian monks at any given time know what is in Chartreuse and how it is distilled. Other monks at the monastery may assist in gathering and preparing some of the raw ingredients, but since their monastic vows prevent them from talking to each other or to anyone else, the formula remains a secret. The original manuscript apparently calls for 130 different herbs and spices, which are macerated in alcohol to extract their essential characters and then distilled in small copper-pot stills. Distilled honey and “golden syrup” are added to the finished product before it is racked into massive wooden casks. Some of the barrels are well into their second century, evidenced by thick greenish-black gunk slowly crystallizing on their outer staves.

The Herbal Elixir of the Grande Chartreuse is the original product, and it is still created in exactly the same manner as it was 250 years ago, with the addition of a minor labeling caveat: it lists sesame seed as an ingredient. Even the monks of La Grande Chartreuse are not immune from lawsuits filed by allergy sufferers. We can logically assume, then, that peanuts and shellfish are not among the secret ingredients. Other than that, it’s anyone’s guess.

Should you be lucky enough to visit the distillery in Voiron, you will see video of monks unloading large, green and yellow burlap sacks of ingredients from the back of a truck. The color code is the only outward indication of what may or may not be in the distillate, and no one has yet been able to explain scientifically how the monks are able to maintain the vibrant color of their products without adding artificial agents.

The Herbal Elixir is not available in America, because it is 71 per cent alcohol (142 proof ), and at that degree of alcoholic strength, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires a label listing all ingredients, which the monks of course will not do. It is bottled in small (10-centiliter) glass flasks, which themselves are encased in sealed wooden cylinders that protect the liquid from light. It’s probably an unintended consequence, but the relatively small size and secure packaging of the elixir might also facilitate its transatlantic smuggling. I would never do such a thing, but if I did, I would stow the contraband in my checked baggage.

The Herbal Elixir is the mother spirit. Through further dilution and sweetening, the monks obtain from it both of the liqueurs (green and yellow) that have been on the market in the US for decades. Each of the liqueurs is produced in one of two grades: a simpler and more widely available regular bottling, and the higher-quality, barrique-aged V.E.P. (Vieillissement Exceptionnellement Prolonge). The V.E.P. is produced in tiny quantities and has been known to disappear from the American market from time to time. The V.E.P. is to the regular bottling what 20 year-old, single malt Scotch is to Johnny Walker: not necessarily stronger, but more refined, complex and rhapsodic. It’s also considerably more expensive.

In addition to the elixir and both of the liqueurs, the monks bottle a number of other products, none of which are exported to the U.S., unfortunately. Three of them are commemorative liqueurs similar in style to the originals: Liqueur du 9ème Centenaire (created in 1984 upon the 900th anniversary of the founding of the order), Chartreuse 1605 (a stronger and more medicinal green spirit that replicates the initial liqueur), and another yellow one, slightly bitter, commissioned by Les Ouvriers des Sommeliers, the fraternal organization of French wine professionals. Four different fruit liqueurs are made from seasonal local berries: Mure Sauvage (wild blackberry), Cassis (black currant), Myrtille (huckleberry), and Framboise (raspberry). And, finally, the distillery also produces two versions of an Alpine liqueur made from what the mountain people call “genepi,” a generic term for various species of high-altitude aromatic plants. The genepi products have more in common with lighter styles of Italian amaro (they are more bitter than sweet, more woodsy than herbal), and have become quite popular among skiers, who take it in shots as a tonic against the cold.

Ultimately, the greatest testament to the mystery in the Elixir of Long Life can be found in the tasting room at the distillery in Voiron. Along one wall is a glass display case about eight feet wide and three shelves deep, where the monks and their business partners have collected as many of the counterfeit versions of Chartreuse as they have been able to find, dozens of different bottles from five inhabited continents, some of them over a hundred years old. What other beverage has spawned so many pretenders, and by extension so much flattery? Even if we knew what was in it and how it was made, because of its colorful history Chartreuse would still rank as the most authentic and alchemical of Old World potables. But we don’t. To taste Chartreuse is to consider the unknown. It is the flavor of faith.

Howdy, folks! Welcome back to Booze In The News, where you’ll find the latest, funniest and most obscure newsworthy, alcohol-related bits all in one place.

1.) If binge drinking were a competition, the UK would be the winner of Europe. A recent survey shows that people in the UK typically consume more alcohol in one sitting than in any other part of the European Union. Looks like they like drinking as much as we do!

2.) Kiwis are increasing alcohol regulation (New Zealanders, not the bird). Whereas before there was no legal drinking age -as long as parents bought the alcohol for their children -now they are attempting to make the drinking age 20. They are also adding a significant tax to alcohol. Apparently the NZ government doesn’t like seeing rum in the schoolyard.

3.) Anchor Brewing company, a historical treasure of San Francisco, has been sold to The Griffin Group of Novato. The local beer community is abuzz with the possible ramifications of this change. Here at Drink Me Magazine, we would love to receive your comments on the issue!

by Heather Stewart

Holy stories of God do not often conjure up memories of drunken orgies, adultery and murder. One can imagine a nun walking by a bar full of this debauchery, crossing herself repeatedly, and throwing in a couple of “Let us be forgiven!”s for good measure. The truth is, however, that alcohol has been around almost as long as mankind, and has inspired some of the most ancient of gods.

Take for instance Bacchus, also known as Dionysus, who was the Greek God of Wine. He was the only one of the official gods of Olympus born of Zeus, and a mortal, Semele. Zeus, an infamous womanizer and hotheaded asshole, was not the best example of a father for Bacchus. Zeus, who was married to a jealous prude named Hera, the goddess of Hearth and Home often went philandering with mortals such as Semele (iI’s not easy being married for all time). Knowing her husband perhaps too well, Hera was onto Zeus’ affairs, and to punish him she killed the pregnant mortal Semele. Zeus managed to save the fetal Bacchus and in his infinite wisdom sewed the fetus into his thigh to be born full-term. Don’t try this at home. After Bacchus’ birth, Zeus handed his son off to the God of Thieves, Hermes, to be raised.

Given his tumultuous upbringing, it figures that Bacchus would end up being a rebel. Instead of fulfilling his standard godly duties, Bacchus preferred to lie around being fed grapes by his band of drunken, orgy-frenzied, female followers known as “Bacchantes.” Meow. Whereas all the other gods had temples, Bacchus was too hung-over to construct buildings so he told his mortal followers to have parties in the forest to honor him. This led many Greek mortals to head to the woods for drunken orgies, which came to be known as Bacchanalia. Those who were pious to the cult of Bacchus received unguarded freedom as well as plenty of sex, wine, and gluttony. If only the trend had continued into modern Judeo-Christian religions, then Sunday morning would be the new Friday night.

As Bacchus could be beneficent, he was equally hostile. His band of ravenous partiers could suddenly become violent. Those impious to Bacchus were often punished harshly, drowned in alcohol, strangled by grape vines, or blatantly dismembered. Mirroring the dual nature of alcohol, Bacchus came to represent the importance of being free and bringing joy, but also the danger of being belligerent and destructive.

The ancient Greeks only had only one god of wine, but the Ancient Egyptians bestowed the responsibility for alcohol onto multiple Gods.. Geshtinana, the “Goddess of the Vine,” was a bit of a soap opera story and once turned her brother-in-law into a gazelle. Ah, family. Then there was, Ninkasi, the Goddess of Beer, who originated in Babylon before immigrating to Egypt. Her job was to satisfy desire and calm the heart. Damn straight. One of the oldest pieces of written literature in human existence is the Babylonian hymn to Ninkasi, which was written around 1800 B.C. and was sung to bless the brewing beer. It contains a recipe for such Babylonian beer, involving dough, sweet aromatics, dates, honey, and hulled grains.

Finally, The Norse gods, living in a cold and miserably war-torn environment, really appreciated the value of alcohol. The progenitor of all Norse gods was murdered in cold blood by his children while he was sleeping. And the various parts of his dismembered body became the earth, sea, and sky. As you can imagine, this sort of life could get stressful, and so the Norse gods drank a lot to take the edge off. Odin, the Norse king of gods, was said to subsist off of nothing but wine: “For ’tis with wine alone that Odin, in arms renowned, is nourished forever.”

So the next time you’re out drinking with your buddies, remember that some deity, somewhere, somehow, is watching over and helping create your revelry. So for that god’s, or that goddess’s, sake, don’t be shy of the raving Bacchantes by the record machine.