recession watch
The old adage about booze being recession-proof may have some truth to it:
alcohol sales are up 2% over the past year. Not surprisingly, the cheap stuff is leading the way, with sales of private-label wine — no, that's not the stuff you brew in your backyard — up 20%. And more people are shunning bars and restaurants, opting instead for the comfort of a brown paper bag and the neighborhood stoop.
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temps
If you're in Ohio and hire Gillian Kresila to officiate your wedding, you'd better not disobey her no-alcohol rule or you'll be sorry. Kresila discovered that the 23-year-old bride, Erin Kuhns, had toasted her magic day with a glass of wine, and she
walked out on the wedding a few minutes before it was scheduled to start.
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manners
If you buy your devil juice from Pennsylvania, you might notice a difference in the way you're treated starting later this month. Pennsylvania is spending $173,000 to train employees of its state-owned liquor and wine stores
to be more polite, reports PhillyBurbs.com: "The board wants to make sure clerks are saying 'hello,' 'thank you' and 'come again' to customers coming in for wine and liquor."
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recession
What's up, beer drinkers of America? Bloomberg notes that "take-out sales of alcoholic beverages
tumbled 9.3 percent in the fourth quarter, the steepest drop since the U.S. Commerce Department started compiling data half a century ago," and a drop four times greater than the overall fall in consumer spending. Most of that was due to the 14 percent drop in beer sales.
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Deicers
Throwing vinegar or alcohol on your frozen windshield might be more efficient than hacking away with an ice scraper and cursing the snow, according to Wisebread. Inside, three easy do-it-yourself de-icing recipes that are sure to make those frigid mornings a little more bearable.
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mouthwash
Great news, kids! Australian researcher Michael McCullough says you should stop using alcoholic mouthwashes like Listerine and Scope because they could give you oral cancer.
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happy hour
Consumers low in spirits are starting to sadden bar owners as they increasingly take advantage of happy hour deals. People aren't cutting back on their
drinking, but they are consuming more at home and trying to extract more booze from their buck when they go out.
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drunks on a plane
Ah yes, alcohol and planes mix together once again — resulting in three days of jail for one St. Louis man who thinks "shoe bombs" are funny.
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cheap booze
Need some quality alcohol at discount prices? Don't want to sign up for a
Costco, Sam's Club or BJ's membership? There may be hope for you!
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nutrition
If you'd like to feel bad, we have a link for you. The
BBC's "Alcohol Experiment" shows you the amount of calories you consumed while drinking last night — or any night — and then translates them into (British) food.
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drunks on a plane
A
United Airlines crew was apparently forced to use
duct tape to restrain an unruly passenger after the normal ankle cuffs kept slipping off. The passenger, who was apparently quite intoxicated after having several drinks at the airport (she also brought alcohol onto the plane), is accused of slapping a flight attendant on the behind, and grabbing and pulling the hair of a passenger whom she'd fallen on.
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polls
A new campaign arguing that the 21-year-old drinking age is not working, and that it "has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking" on college campuses has been signed by an eclectic group of over 100 college presidents, including those of Duke, Dartmouth, The Ohio State University, and Johns Hopkins.
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