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Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

vinepair.com

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Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#81

Post by Cthulhu_ »

at_compile_time wrote: post #16
gwbas1c wrote: post #2

Reminds me of when a friend ordered some San Pedro cactus over the internet "for religious sacrament." It included a note indicating that they ran out of the exact variety that he ordered, but they thought that he'd be very happy with the one they sent because it was stronger when used for religious purposes. (San Pedro cactus contains mescaline. It's perfectly legal to grow for ornamental purposes.)

Mushroom spores are sold online for "microscopy purposes only".

"bath salts" comes to mind, wasn't that a nickname for some wack shit?

Over here, huffing nitrous oxide is a thing, but it's sold as pressure gas for whipped cream dispensers and the like.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#82

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Sharlin wrote: post #63
supernova87a wrote: post #45

How did they make the concentrate without destroying all the subtle things I hear that wine is supposed to contain (and the yeast)? Did they boil it? Reverse osmosis? Vacuum?

I doubt those “subtle things” were a priority in this case. Or any consideration at all. People didn’t drink this stuff for its flavor.

Not much has changed if you look at the cheap alcohol available.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#83

Post by Cthulhu_ »

awild wrote: post #55
wumpus wrote: post #4

Fun that the homebrew limit is still 200 gallons. The more things change, ...

In germany beer homebrewing is limited at 200L/year (approx 50gallons, which is a respectable but not huge amount if you have friends). Anything above you have to pay taxes on. Those taxes however are pretty minor for a typical 20L batch, and customs are only allowed to investigate a case if they suspect a big enough discrepancy (I think 10€). So there's a group of petty homebrewers who don't make use of their free 2…

If it's just homebrewing / for personal, family / friends consumption, how would they even find out? A lot of laws are only there to enforce if they actually uncover a big operation.

Like, during the 'rona lockdowns you weren't allowed to have more than X visitors, but no policeman would want to go door to door to see if people were having visitors.

(actually don't quote me on it, the visitors thing may have been advisory)

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#84

Post by yanmaani »

boogies wrote: post #8
Syonyk wrote: post #3

I'm always reminded of the bit from The Incredibles: BOB PARR: All right, listen closely. I'd like to help you, but I can't. I'd like to tell you to take a copy of your policy to Norma Wilcox on... Norma Wilcox. W-I-L-C-O-X. On the third floor. But I can't. I also do not advise you to fill out and file a WS2475 form with our legal department on the second floor. I wouldn't expect someone to get back to you quickly to…

Offtopic, but The Incredibles has one of my favorite movie quotes: You always say “Be true to yourself”, but you never say which part of yourself to be true to! … which stuck in my head because so many Disney (and other?) movies seem to be all about being “true to yourself,” and in my experience they conspicuously fail to address the fact (in my belief system) that all humans have both good and evil, selfish and self…

C.S. Lewis:

> The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity," and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#85

Post by capableweb »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #58
db65edfc7996 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone else who was clueless, whip cream chargers are a source of nitrous oxide.

Nitrous oxide, is that the same thing as "mad oxygen"?

I've heard it being called many things, but not specifically "mad oxygen", but commonly "laughing gas". https://erowid.org/chemicals/nitrous/nitrous.shtml

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#86

Post by franciscop »

> the note would continue with a warning instructing you not to leave that jug in the cool cupboard for 21 days, or it would turn into wine

I read (cannot find the source now though) that's similar to today's homemade alcohol/beer in Japan, where there's a limit of what % of alcohol you can make at home. So all the official instructions include a last step: "mix in water until the alcohol percentage is below the legal limit". Of course people just ignore this to have stronger alcohol.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#87

Post by awild »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #83
awild wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In germany beer homebrewing is limited at 200L/year (approx 50gallons, which is a respectable but not huge amount if you have friends). Anything above you have to pay taxes on. Those taxes however are pretty minor for a typical 20L batch, and customs are only allowed to investigate a case if they suspect a big enough discrepancy (I think 10€). So there's a group of petty homebrewers who don't make use of their free 2…

If it's just homebrewing / for personal, family / friends consumption, how would they even find out? A lot of laws are only there to enforce if they actually uncover a big operation. Like, during the 'rona lockdowns you weren't allowed to have more than X visitors, but no policeman would want to go door to door to see if people were having visitors. (actually don't quote me on it, the visitors thing may have been adv…

> If it's just homebrewing / for personal, family / friends consumption, how would they even find out? A lot of laws are only there to enforce if they actually uncover a big operation.

True and that's kind of the joke. They aren't even allowed to do visitations without evidence of malpractice. But the laws surrounding it are even stranger: The beer produced should only be consumed at home, any outside consumption would require taxation, therefore homebrew competitions ask you to tax your submissions. They've actually went to homebrew competitions and busted people on the grounds of 10€ pP at most (But remember if I self report/pay it would only be a few ct - so even less). Homebrew meetups have never had problems before.

The background of the law (at least in folk telling) is that the big guys were worried about malt-extract making homebrewing so easy as to make commercial brewing superfluous.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#89

Post by llampx »

tdeck wrote: post #19

Wanting to read more I found this other article with a more nuanced take and some additional information: https://grapecollective.com/articles/prohibitions-grape-bric... > The grape of choice for home winemakers quickly became Alicante Bouschet. Thick, tough skins helped the grape survive the cross–country journey, and it grew in large quantities > By the end of Prohibition in 1933, other grape varietals and fruits h…

If it helped the wineries and vineyards survive, I guess its the lesser of the two evils. Given that the other wine-drinking regions probably didn't want to import new world grapes to make wine with.

Re: Wine bricks saved the U.S. wine industry during Prohibition (2015)

#90

Post by llampx »

bsza wrote: post #61
bobthepanda wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic accidents actually went up in the US. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-12-08/traffi... Generally speaking, emptier roads encourage more speeding and reckless driving, increasing the severity of car accidents.

The US isn't the litmus test of everything though. In the EU, road deaths dropped sharply in 2020. https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetydata/

The EU had wider scale lockdowns that lasted longer, IIRC.
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