Economy Size Geek

I saw this today - it was part of a large article on a completely different subject:

Also, each wine has a different alcohol content– 12.5% is the typical French ideal, and most wines are built (i.e. alcohol osmotically removed) to stay under 14% because the tariff increases above that. There is a leeway of 1.5% in the listing, so 12.5% could be 11% or 14%. That’s a 2 “drink”/bottle difference.

From The Last Psychiatrist: Just How Many Drinks A Day Is Bad?

The reason it caught my eye had a lot more to do with the impact of the law on the alcoholic beverage that is produced.
We tend to think of this a modern issue. The Blue laws and such that make so complicated to find your favorite brew when and where you want to drink it, but it goes back a long time.

Gruit - was heavily controlled. It was the original additive to beer. As the article points out, hops became popular for a number of reasons - but one was to get out from under that control (and artificially high prices).

In Germany, the Reinheitsgebot (German Beer Purity Law) was paced to protect the people from some very very strange ingredients brewers were throwing into the kettle in an attempt to make beer on the cheap.

In the history of Belgian brewers, there are a number of odd recipes for making very very strong beer that relate to the fact that the size of the mash tun - and not the alcoholic output was the subject of tax.

Makes you wonder - if there weren’t all these rules constraining the manufacturers - would all alcoholic beverages slowly slide towards vodka - oderless, flavorless, and a punch that can put down a rhino?