Single Malt?

[Kraka's Dad]

No the journalist is correct. Normal spirits are 40% alcohol which is 70% proof on the sikes scale. There are other scales like there are for temperature. I work for Customs & Excise and have had to measure the strength of spirits as part of my job using a sikes hydrometer.

[Guess]

There still (forgive the pun) seems to some confusion regarding percentage, degrees and their relationship to certain commonly obtainable berverages.

All figures below are percentage,s Not degrees

Beer ranges from 3% to 20% (Baz's Super Brew from England is 24%). The normal all over the world is 5%.

In Thailand Heineken, and Tiger are 5%, Leoss 5.2, Singha 6 and Chang 6.4

Wines range from 8 to 14 but normally are 11 or 12.

Fortified wines (Martini, Sherry, Port etc.) vary betreen 16 and 24 with Port usually the strongest.

Spirits vary from 35 to 50. 40 is the norm. 50 are usually specials like Smirnoff Blue.

Anything over 50 is head banging gear like Pocheen, Polish Spirit, Absinthe and surgical alchohol.

As has already been stated degrees is approximately double percentage.

See my earlier post that descibes what degrees means in this context.

[Rob c]

Standard whisky is 40% alcohol, not proof, vodka is 37.5% unless you buy blue label.

Self edit: Kraka's Dad beat me to it, I hadn't read the next page, doh!

[Jim]

Sorry, I got it wrong. Thanks for getting me put right.

As ever, acting in haste...

[lomuamart]

I note that no-ones mentioned Mescal.
Anyone tried it?

[Jim]

I'd never heard of mezcal, but after a quick google it looks like it could do some terrible damage. The worst I've had is the local stuff in Goa, a spirit they call feni.

Back to mezcal, if you've never tried tequila and champagne, I recommend a session. This has made for the most drunken evenings yet in my short and sheltered existence.

[lomuamart]

Proper mescal will have you seeing things A wicked drink.
Feni I remember well from Goa. From coconuts, yes?

[Kraka's Dad]

Ouzo & Brandy mixed is interesting and has caused a few "lost" evenings for me!!
Polish white spirit is firewater and you can feel it burning on the way down !

[PeteC]

Ouzo & Brandy mixed is interesting and has caused a few "lost" evenings for me!!
Polish white spirit is firewater and you can feel it burning on the way down !

We may need the experts again but there is (or was) a substance you could buy in the States bottle named "Grain Alcohol". People (or kids) used to use it as a mixer with grape juice? I seem to remember a proof number higher than Ron Rico 151? Pete

[Siddisen]

The Austrian have their "Stroh Rum" You can have it on 60 or 80% from the shop,but the 80% is classifyed as narcoticum of the ustomer in Norway

Siddis

[lomuamart]

Ouzo & Brandy mixed is interesting and has caused a few "lost" evenings for me!!
Polish white spirit is firewater and you can feel it burning on the way down !

I just about remember living on a beach in Corfu years ago. I was shown the best way to drink Ouzo - out of a water melon, passed around the camp fire.
The next day, hungover and thirsty, simply eat the water melon.
Guaranteed to mess you up again. "Two for the price of one". Brilliant.

[PeteC]

Similar to injecting an orange with vodka via a hypademic nerdle, except in the morning there is nothing left to eat except the rhine (hic...) Pete

[Rob c]

The worst I've had is the local stuff in Goa, a spirit they call feni.

Agreed, that stuff is rank, even I couldn't get on with that muck.

What about Absinthe, that stuff does all sorts of funny things to you! I've got a bottle at home that's 70% alcohol, it aint nice! Had it years, I'll finish it eventually!

[Guess]

Proper mescal will have you seeing things

Too right it will. I quote from a well known acid head on the subject:

If we could sniff or swallow something that would, for five or six hours each day, abolish our solitude as individuals, atone us with our fellows in a glowing exaltation of affection and make life in all its aspects seem not only worth living, but divinely beautiful and significant, and if this heavenly, world-transfiguring drug were of such a kind that we could wake up next morning with a clear head and an undamaged constitution-then, it seems to me, all our problems (and not merely the one small problem of discovering a novel pleasure) would be wholly solved and earth would become paradise."

ALDOUS HUXLEY



And from an anoymous Guinea Pig

QUALITATIVE COMMENTS: (with 300 mg) "I would have liked to, and was expecting to, have an exciting visual day, but I seemed to be unable to escape self-analysis. At the peak of the experience I was quite intoxicated and hyper with energy, so that it was not hard to move around. I was quite restless. But I spent most of the day in considerable agony, attempting to break through without success. I learned a great deal about myself and my inner workings. Everything almost was, but in the final analysis, wasn't. I began to become aware of a point, a brilliant white light, that seemed to be where God was entering, and it was inconceivably wonderful to perceive it and to be close to it. One wished for it to approach with all one's heart. I could see that people would sit and meditate for hours on end just in the hope that this little bit of light would contact them. I begged for it to continue and come closer but it did not. It faded away not to return in that particular guise the rest of the day. Listening to Mozart's Requiem, there were magnificent heights of beauty and glory. The world was so far away from God, and nothing was more important than getting back in touch with Him. But I saw how we created the nuclear fiasco to threaten the existence of the planet, as if it would be only through the threat of complete annihilation that people might wake up and begin to become concerned about each other. And so also with the famines in Africa. Many similar scenes of joy and despair kept me in balance. I ended up the experience in a very peaceful space, feeling that though I had been through a lot, I had accomplished a great deal. I felt wonderful, free, and clear."

I do not think it is the alccohol that causes the effect.

[Rob c]

Monte Alban Mescal, I've drank that a few times & eaten the worm, maybe that stuff's not the real deal though. It's an agarve (or something like that) worm in that, from the agarve cactus. Never did anything to me apart from get me well hammered, which was nice.

Tell me Guess, your post above, is that Mescal or Mescaline they're talking about. Mescaline comes from the Peyote cactus, now that's another story all together. So I'm told of course!