Mammals gone wild

1. New news to me: Elephants do not get drunk on marula fruit. 2. New news: Malaysian pen-tailed tree shrews do.

CHOW booze round-up

CHOW.com is just cranking out the booze stories lately. Currently on the front page there are:

• A take-down of Vodka 360's greenwashing
• A terrific Japanese whisky primer by Aaron Gilbreath that even has taste comparison notes to scotch brands
• An analysis of why nose grease tames beer foam
• And why Champagne's AOC is expanding

Brews News

Just some links to beer news today: Where to get cheap beer in New York. Rogue Ales is being exported to China. Scientist uses diffusing acoustic wave spectroscopy to study beer bubbles.

“A lot of effort has gone into figuring out how to get just the right concentration and size of bubbles, and how to produce the perfect head on a glass of beer,” he says. “There are people who work in that industry who know much, much more about that than I do. Could diffusing acoustic wave spectroscopy be useful to them? Maybe. But for me, beer is just a good example of the kind of thing you can do using this technique.”

Quitter

According to lab rat research, the smoking-cessation drug varenicline may also reduce cravings for alcohol. That's good news for people who can't choose between smoking or drinking for which vice they want to quit. But what would you do with your hands when you went to a bar? Maybe they should invent a pill that you can ingest by smoking or drinking it instead.