Weird alcohol facts you won’t believe
Apr 11, 2018
World Best Bar
10 January 2019
Raise a glass to some the weirdest and most wonderful pieces of trivia about alcohol. From champagne cork killings to houses made of beer mats, here are some handy facts to mention in your next barroom banter session.
- Be careful next time you break open the bubbly. Every year, 24 people die after being hit with a champagne cork. That’s more deaths than from spider bites. This is partly because a champagne cork leaves a bottle at over 55mph – that’s enough to break spectacles, a phone screen, or a champagne flute itself!
- If you prefer something stronger, why not try a 12.3 litre bucket of vodka (or as we call it, Friday night)? Until 1885, this was the only measure you could buy the spirit in.
- After drinking 12.3 litres of vodka you may find yourself suffering from methyphobia, or fear of alcohol.
- On the subject of names, which spirit was known as ‘Ladies’ Delight’, ‘Royal Poverty’, ‘Parliamentary Brandy’ and ‘King Theodore of Corsica’ in the 1800s? It’s ‘Mother’s Ruin’ herself, gin!
- Another alcohol with some great names are real ales. Take a trip to your local pub and enjoy a tasty pint of ‘Moose Knuckle Winter Stout’, ‘Ginger Tosser’ or the so-called ‘chosen beer’, ‘He-Brew’.
- From the best to the biggest, did you know that the Guinness World Record for the world’s biggest beer is held by the Auld Dubliner Irish Pub in Tustin, California? In 2009, they filled an 8-foot glass with nearly 1,500 litres of, you guessed it, Guinness.
- John Evans holds the records for most pints balanced on the head after managing 237 in 2010.
- The world’s biggest house made out of beer mats was also created in 2010 when Sven Goebel made a full apartment out of 300,000 of the paper coasters.
- Those looking for a grislier fact should know about the grim afterlife of the lover of one of Peter the Great’s wives, Catherine. It’s theorised that after finding out about her infidelity, it was off with the head of her male paramour, Willem Mons. He then had this beheaded boyfriend’s head put in alcohol in a large jar, which is still preserved at the Kunstkamera museum today. We’ll (not) have what he’s having…
