alcohol

Rotten, fermented fruit has some nutritional value, and may have looked pretty good to our hungry ancient ancestors. Evolving the ability to metabolize the alcohol in fermented fruit may have helped us adapt to a changing climate 10 million years ago, res

Science

Our Ability To Digest Alcohol May Have Been Key To Our Survival

10:51am December 05, 2014

by Eliza Barclay

Our primate ancestors could consume alcohol 10 million years ago in the form of fermented fruit, researchers have discovered. The finding suggests that our relationship with alcohol is ancient.

Smoke and mirrors: Dave Arnold plays around with liquid nitrogen in a cocktail glass during his interview with NPR's Ari Shapiro.

Arts

From Humble Salt To Fancy Freezing: How To Up Your Cocktail Game

2:36pm December 01, 2014

by NPR Staff

You don't need to have liquid nitrogen at your next cocktail party — but it's certainly a sure-fire way to impress your guests. Expert mixologist Dave Arnold walks you through it.

Queue Listen Now

Lots of bottles of various alcoholic drinks.

Seeking Proof For Why We Feel Terrible After Too Many Drinks

3:02pm November 04, 2014

Author Adam Rogers says there are lots of myths about what causes hangovers. His new book, Proof: The Science of Booze, explores these and other scientific mysteries of alcohol's effect on the body.

Queue Listen Now

Joe Ambrose of Favourite Ice holds one of his crystal-clear artisanal cubes.

Arts

Can Hand-Cut, Artisanal Ice Make Your Cocktail That Much Better?

4:41pm October 22, 2014

by Eliza Barclay

If you're sipping craft cocktails, your fancy $15 drink might now come with fancy ice. It's bigger, clearer and allegedly better tasting than the regular stuff made with tap water.

Either we smoke or we drink or we break up.

Health & Safety

When Cigarettes Cost More, People Drink Less. Except For Wine

12:24pm September 29, 2014

by Alison Bruzek

If you raised the price of Don Draper's cigarettes, would he have cut back on the whiskey? Probably not, but it works on most beer and spirits drinkers, a study finds. Wine drinkers, not so much.

Clubgoers dance at a Stockholm club that forbade its patrons from drinking Friday night.

Sober And Sold-Out: Dance Club In Sweden Cuts Booze For A Night

4:49pm September 28, 2014

by Bill Chappell

Breathalyzers were placed in the doorway of a nightclub in Stockholm this weekend, with an unusual purpose: to ensure no guests had been drinking any booze.

Frostburg State University police officer Derrick Pirolozzi conducts a "knock and talk" at a house near campus, reminding students of laws on underage drinking and open containers.

National

Colleges Brainstorm Ways To Cut Back On Binge Drinking

11:38am September 21, 2014

by Jennifer Ludden

With 40 percent of college students binge drinking, efforts to get students to drink less may seem futile. But something as simple as encouraging beer stores to quit selling pingpong balls can help.

Queue Listen Now

Bottles of mahia in the Nahmias et Fils distillery.

Couple Revives Lost Moroccan Fig Liquor, One Bottle At A Time

7:56pm July 07, 2014

by Alex Schmidt

Jews have made mahia, a spirit made with fermented figs, in Morocco for centuries, but the tradition has all but died out. A New York couple aims to reintroduce the drink that once connected a nation.

Queue Listen Now

Daily News

NC's Operation Firecracker in Full Gear

4:29pm June 30, 2014

As people make Fourth of July celebration plans, state law enforcement officers want them to include road safety.

Tuthilltown Spirits in New York makes a clear corn whiskey, and the first legal aged whiskey in the state since Prohibition, among other products.

New York Toasts Long-Awaited Revival Of Its Distilleries

11:30am July 23, 2013

by Joel Rose

In the unregulated heyday before Prohibition, distilleries in New York produced whiskey, gin, rum and other spirits. Then the industry was all but wiped out for the next 80 years. But state laws regulating distilling have been loosened and now dozens of new distilleries have sprung up.

Queue Listen Now