Champagne's Greener Future

How will champagne companies cut down their carbon footprints?

"We're slimming the shoulders to make the champagne bottle lighter, so our carbon footprint will be reduced to help keep Champagne here for future generations," said Thierry Gasco, the "master vintner" at Pommery.

In the near future all champagne houses will use new eight hundred and thirty five gram bottles. Each new bottle saves the champagne house two cents. According to Tyler Colman, an author of the wine industry and environmental studies, "For champagne producers to reduce the wight of their packaging is definitely a step in the right direction". The direct effect of the bottling change is equal to taking four thousand small automobiles off the road, trimming eight thousand metric tons of carbon exhaust every year!

Expect to see the new bottles in liquor stores and restaurants in three years.

Toast to going green!

Cheers!

Alderman, Liz. The New York Times, "A Greener Champagne Bottle". 01 September 2010.

The Future of Champagne

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble: Does global warming spell the end for Champagne?

From the 1950s to the 1980s the average temperature of Champagne’s growing season was a steady 14.3 degrees Celsius. In the 1990s this increased to 15 degrees Celsius. What of the 2000s? Could it have risen by the same amount again, to 15.7 degrees Celsius? Surely not double, to 16.4 degrees Celsius? Wrong. The latest ten year average in Champagne has shot up to a whopping 16.6 degrees Celsius.But temperature rise in itself tells only a fraction of the story. The weather is becoming more extreme and more unpredictable. Winters are now longer, wetter and warmer, summers are shorter, hotter and more erratic. There’s more rainfall, changed rainfall patterns and more violent storms. Humidity is on the rise, as are strong winds.If you believed all the commentary, you’d have to conclude that the Champagne that we know and love is all but doomed. Global demand is pushing volumes up and quality down. The boundaries of the region are poised to swell into lesser lands. And global warming spells Armageddon for the region that has built a wine style around its climate.

What effect on viticulture? More pests and diseases, more risk of exposure to spring frosts and summer heat, and more danger from severe rot. Ripeness levels in Champagne have risen, in spite of an increase of fifty percent in yields. Acidity has dropped and pH has risen.

Champagne yields have averaged fifteen tonnes per hectare over the past decade. Over the previous thirty years they were less than ten tonnes per hectare. For the technocrats, natural alcohol has jumped from 9.6% to 9.9% over the same period, total acidity has dropped from 13.5g to 11.38g (tartaric) and pH has risen from 3.05 to 3.10. These numbers do not spell good news for Champagne.

Much has been written on the changing face of Champagne and the conclusion has not been optimistic: Champagne as we know it is in dire trouble.

article reprinted from Stelzer, Tyson. The Champagne Guide 2011.

The Future of Fake I.D.s

Fake drivers licenses are becoming more and more difficult to detect.

Minors have been sneaking into and being served alcohol for many years. The National Minimum Drinking Act was passed on July 17, 1984. This act was created, in part, to prevent teens from crossing state lines, drinking legally, and then driving home intoxicated. Many remember being served underage without having id's checked or without much hassle. In the last ten years, however, due to an increase in bars and clubs having their liquor licenses revoked, a crackdown on underage bar patrons was on. To counter this, with increased technology, overseas companies have been selling near perfect Pennsylvania drivers licenses to underage consumers. www.IDChief.com is know for this. According to reporter Jason Nark, "... the Pennsylvania license, the company claims, is the most authentic ID it makes." In the future, how will the state prevent underage drinking with the current prevalence of these faux licenses? Will an import from these websites be put under a ban? Will the state change it's current licenses?

"National Minimum Drinking Age Act". 19 April 2011. web. 21 April 2011

Nark, Jason. "Fake Driver's Licenses Tougher and Tougher to ID" Daily News 14 March 2011.

In PA's Near Future: Liquor From a Vending Machine

Vending Machines! When you were a child, you donated quarter after quarter into these machines in hopes of procuring a pink stuffed teddy bear or more modernly, maybe a video game. In Japan, even though now illegal, vending machines offering girl's panties can still be found for sale. Commonly, water, soda, potato chips, and candy bars are offered in these mechanical boxes. Condoms are available in some night club bathrooms, and hotels. Cigarettes vending machines, at once more commonplace, are still found in some PA bars and membership only only clubs.

In the near future, liquor will be offered in Pennsylvanian super markets. The vending machines will sell full sized bottles of liquor. (This is opposed to the one shot mini bottles found on airplanes and hotel bars.) A small number of "wine kiosks" opened last June. However, it will be months before hard liquor will begin being sold. Is this the future of liquor sales? No, not unless Pennsylvania is blanketed with these machines! Have you been to the liquor store on a holiday!? On New Year's Eve, Christmas Eve, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, entire liquor stores are almost sold out! I do not think vending machines will be the sole way to purchase alcohol in the near future, but twenty years from now will robots take over and do away with state stores as we are familiar with them?

Before purchasing alcohol from these new vending machines, one must breath into a breathalyzer to detect-and not allow purchase to- buyers who have already been "enjoying their spirits". Additionally, a driver's license or state identification card must be swiped. Remember those over twenty one wishing to soon purchase your liquor of choice: Big Brother is always watching you.

Elias, Joe. "Hard Liquor Coming Soon to Vending Machines at Supermarkets". 21, April 2011. web. 22, April 2011

"Pa. to test liquor Sales From Vending Machines". 22, April 2011. web. 22, April 2011

Pickle Back

Attention Hipsters:

Do you ride your vintage Schwinn to shop at Anthropologie? Do you love to wear kitschy tees, plaid flannel button ups, and totally get irony? Well, if so I have your future drink! While you may now be drinking cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon at house parties and kicking back with a pint of seasonal micro brew at the local hang out, soon you will be enjoying a Pickle Back. Pickle Backs are easy to make, with only two ingredients.

Directions: shoot one ounce of Jamison whisky and follow with pickle juice as a chaser.

The smoothness of the whisky is balanced by the tartness of the pickle juice chaser.

Enjoy yours now, while this alcoholic drink is still quirky and unique. Pickle Backs will be the hipster shot of the future.

"

Boozy Trend Alert- Get Pickled" 04 April 2011, web. 20 April 2011

"Urban Outfitters" web. 20 April 2011

Heineken Beer Serving Robot of the Future

You might think this sounds strange but at Middlesex University they have managed to create a robotic serving robot which means you don’t need to walk far at all to get your beer. Actually scrap that you will be able to stay on the Sofa and be served, this also might just be perfect for those house parties.

We humans will be able to hover our hands over the sensor in the head to stop the robot then just place your cup in the holder ready to be filled. It will then continue along its serving path ready for the next refill. This has to be assigning of things to come and looks very interesting for the future development of robots. Unfortunately this is still prototype but it can’t be much longer before these handy robots come on the market for real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWLcZfeq634

Heineken Bot was developed at the Autonomous Systems Lab in the Product Design and Engineering department of Middlesex University. Originally developed to exhibit at Kinetica Art Fair London, the Heineken Robot is an autonomous mobile system for serving beer.

Study: Early Response to Alcohol Hints Future Habits

Submitted by Prakash Sharma on Mon, 04/11/2011 - 08:49

As per the findings of a new study conducted by the researchers from the University of Chicago, the effect of alcohol is different on the people with different drinking habits.
It has also been claimed that the early response to the alcohol can largely determine the person’s drinking habits in the latter years.
It is learnt that more than 200 adults were recruited for the study purpose. All the subjects in the trial group were within the age bracket of 21 to 35 years and were categorized into two groups of light and heavy drinkers.
It was then found that where the heavy drinkers experienced greater sensitivity to the rewarding and stimulating effects of alcohol, the people who prefer to go easy on the liquor reported stronger alcohol-related sluggishness and sedation.
In addition, the people were willing to exacerbate their binge drinking habits during the two year follow-up period were more likely to have experienced positive and stimulating effects of alcohol hinting that the future drinking habits can be predicted this way.
The author of the research, Andrea King stated, “If we know more about who's going to become a problem drinker, we may be able to prevent future escalations and intervene earlier, before development of severe alcoholism”.