Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Bars in the USSR where no Soviets were allowed:
Health Benefits of Drinking in the Afternoon (source: 午後に飲むことの健康上の利点)
- Thread starter SoBad
- Start date
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Kim Jong Un's secret trip to China was full of gourmet food, wine, and music — take a look inside the lavish visit
Alexandra Ma
Mar 28, 2018, 6:25 AM
Kim Jong Un secretly visited Beijing this week for top-level meetings with Chinese president Xi Jinping — and it turns out it was a lavish and luxuriant affair.
While China touted this as an "unofficial visit," photos released on Wednesday by state news agency KCNA showed a grand trip filled with gourmet meals, wine, and performances.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/...300000578-5555565-image-a-6_1522264700048.jpg
Dutch Customs Seize 90,000 Bottles Of Russian Vodka Allegedly Bound For North Korea
February 26, 20198:24 PM ET
Dutch customs officials have intercepted thousands of bottles of Russian vodka they say were destined for North Korea's ruling elite, including Kim Jong Un and top military leaders, according to a Dutch investigation.
The prohibited-booze bust in Rotterdam comes on the eve of Kim Jong Un's two-day meeting with President Trump in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.
The shipping container holding 90,000 bottles of Stolbovaya vodka was discovered on Friday, concealed beneath an aircraft fuselage being shipped inside a Chinese freighter, authorities told Dutch newspaper, Algemeen Dagblad.
The ship, called Nebula, had originated in Russia, had stopped in Hamburg, and was about a day away from Rotterdam, one of the world's largest ports.
Paperwork pertaining to the container's circuitous route indicated its final destination was supposed to be China, but authorities, alerted by a computer program, suspected it was really meant to reach Pyongyang in North Korea, and flagged it for inspection.
"We do not want to release more information than necessary about our control strategy," Arno Kooij, director of risk management for the Customs Administration, told the paper. "But what I can tell you is that, based on the information available, we suspected that this particular container was subject to the sanctions regime for North Korea."
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/26/6984...of-russian-vodka-allegedly-bound-for-north-ko
Alexandra Ma
Mar 28, 2018, 6:25 AM
Kim Jong Un secretly visited Beijing this week for top-level meetings with Chinese president Xi Jinping — and it turns out it was a lavish and luxuriant affair.
While China touted this as an "unofficial visit," photos released on Wednesday by state news agency KCNA showed a grand trip filled with gourmet meals, wine, and performances.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/...300000578-5555565-image-a-6_1522264700048.jpg
Dutch Customs Seize 90,000 Bottles Of Russian Vodka Allegedly Bound For North Korea
February 26, 20198:24 PM ET
Dutch customs officials have intercepted thousands of bottles of Russian vodka they say were destined for North Korea's ruling elite, including Kim Jong Un and top military leaders, according to a Dutch investigation.
The prohibited-booze bust in Rotterdam comes on the eve of Kim Jong Un's two-day meeting with President Trump in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.
The shipping container holding 90,000 bottles of Stolbovaya vodka was discovered on Friday, concealed beneath an aircraft fuselage being shipped inside a Chinese freighter, authorities told Dutch newspaper, Algemeen Dagblad.
The ship, called Nebula, had originated in Russia, had stopped in Hamburg, and was about a day away from Rotterdam, one of the world's largest ports.
Paperwork pertaining to the container's circuitous route indicated its final destination was supposed to be China, but authorities, alerted by a computer program, suspected it was really meant to reach Pyongyang in North Korea, and flagged it for inspection.
"We do not want to release more information than necessary about our control strategy," Arno Kooij, director of risk management for the Customs Administration, told the paper. "But what I can tell you is that, based on the information available, we suspected that this particular container was subject to the sanctions regime for North Korea."
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/26/6984...of-russian-vodka-allegedly-bound-for-north-ko
Last edited:
stringertom
Bionic Poster
Free @SoBad now, KJU! Maybe a trade straight up for the soon-to-be impeached Covfefe45. Save the Doritos...orange looks good on him!!!Reports indicate that @SoBad is still languishing in a North Korean prison. He has no internet access and is subsisting on a diet of imported King Cobra and Doritos.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
A Family Tradition
Kim Jong Il Dead: Crazy Facts
North Korea's supreme leader was knows for decadent and eccentric tastes.
By
KEVIN DOLAK and ENJOLI FRANCIS
Dec. 19, 2011— -- intro: Kim Jong Il, North Korea's supreme leader who ruled over one of the poorest countries in the world, died Saturday of heart failure.
The 69-year-old was known for decadent and eccentric tastes and for outlandishly stretching the truth about his personal history and prowess. Here is a look at some of the most famous and controversial facts and fables about Kim Jong Il.
Kim was a major film buff, and reportedly owned 10,000 to 20,000 DVDs, many of which were Hollywood films. Some of his favorite movies include the 1980s slasher flick "Friday the 13th," the Sylvester Stallone action flick "Rambo" and the Japanese classic "Godzilla."
He was also a major fan of Hong Kong action cinema, according to the Guardian newspaper. And the BBC said he considered Elizabeth Taylor one of his favorite actresses.
Kim was a big fan of wine and the cognac Hennessey. The leader had cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines flown from Paris, according to Pulikovsky, and was one of Hennessey's best customers, reportedly spending more than $800,000 on the cognac per year.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/kim-jong-il-dead-top-10-crazy-facts/story?id=15187293
Hennessy responds to the loss of its best customer
Say what you want about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, the man liked his Hennessy. For two years in the mid-1990s, he was the world’s largest buyer of Hennessy Paradis cognac, importing up to $800,000 of the stuff a year, both to quaff himself and to give as gifts, and his death has caused ...
BY ISAAC STONE FISH | DECEMBER 23, 2011, 9:26 PM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/12/23/hennessy-responds-to-the-loss-of-its-best-customer/
Kim Jong Il Dead: Crazy Facts
North Korea's supreme leader was knows for decadent and eccentric tastes.
By
KEVIN DOLAK and ENJOLI FRANCIS
Dec. 19, 2011— -- intro: Kim Jong Il, North Korea's supreme leader who ruled over one of the poorest countries in the world, died Saturday of heart failure.
The 69-year-old was known for decadent and eccentric tastes and for outlandishly stretching the truth about his personal history and prowess. Here is a look at some of the most famous and controversial facts and fables about Kim Jong Il.
Kim was a major film buff, and reportedly owned 10,000 to 20,000 DVDs, many of which were Hollywood films. Some of his favorite movies include the 1980s slasher flick "Friday the 13th," the Sylvester Stallone action flick "Rambo" and the Japanese classic "Godzilla."
He was also a major fan of Hong Kong action cinema, according to the Guardian newspaper. And the BBC said he considered Elizabeth Taylor one of his favorite actresses.
Kim was a big fan of wine and the cognac Hennessey. The leader had cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines flown from Paris, according to Pulikovsky, and was one of Hennessey's best customers, reportedly spending more than $800,000 on the cognac per year.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/kim-jong-il-dead-top-10-crazy-facts/story?id=15187293
Hennessy responds to the loss of its best customer
Say what you want about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, the man liked his Hennessy. For two years in the mid-1990s, he was the world’s largest buyer of Hennessy Paradis cognac, importing up to $800,000 of the stuff a year, both to quaff himself and to give as gifts, and his death has caused ...
BY ISAAC STONE FISH | DECEMBER 23, 2011, 9:26 PM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/12/23/hennessy-responds-to-the-loss-of-its-best-customer/
Last edited:
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
The Vodka Effect
Happy New Year: A short history of booze diplomacy.
By MARK LAWRENCE SCHRAD
When it was French President Charles de Gaulle’s turn to be fêted nearing the end of World War II, he was horrified by a series of 30 toasts—more uneasy for the content of Stalin’s tributes than the alcohol itself. To rear army commander Andrei Khrulev (whose wife had just been arrested): “He’d better do his best, or he’ll be hanged for it, that’s the custom in our country!” To collectivization architect Lazar Kaganovich, who’d recently sacrificed his own brother to Stalin’s bloodthirsty paranoia: “a brave man. He knows that if the trains do not arrive on time—we shall shoot him!” To air force commander Aleksandr Novikov: “a good Marshal, let’s drink to him. And if he doesn’t do his job properly, we’ll hang him!” (Two years later, Novikov would be arrested, tortured, and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.) Reading the discomfort on his French guest’s face, Stalin put his hand on de Gaulle’s shoulder and smiled: “People call me a monster, but as you see, I make a joke of it. Maybe I’m not horrible after all.”
Whether aimed at foreign dignitaries or his own Politburo colleagues, one benefit of this banquet tradition was—according to Stalin’s longtime Politburo confidant Anastas Mikoyan—to “loosen our tongues, so that we couldn’t control what we said, and he would later know who was thinking what.” Indeed, from Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great to Joseph Stalin and Boris Yeltsin, Russian leaders have used alcohol to glean information from potential adversaries, both foreign and domestic. In the 1960s, Chinese Premier Zhao Enlai claimed that “Khrushchev got me drunk,” apparently in hopes of strengthening the Soviets’ bargaining position. In negotiating U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms restrictions into the early morning hours, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev pushed for greater American concessions while Henry Kissinger was exhausted and Nixon was drunk. As Nixon biographer James C. Humes explained: “With the Soviets it was often bombast followed by laughter; saber rattling giving way to smiles; and then the hard work of negotiation succeeded by hard drinking.”
Before becoming president of Russia, former KGB agent Vladimir Putin reportedly joked that “there are three ways to influence people: blackmail, vodka, and threatening to kill.” While it is difficult to verify this quote (as the investigative journalist died in a suspicious plane crash days after the article’s publication), it certainly reflects well-established tactics of international diplomacy. Blackmail is akin to economic strong-arming; saber-rattling is the threat to kill and vodka is the traditional banquet, which can often enhance the other two.
This brings us full circle to the Casey affair. By his own admission, while he was over-imbibing, the major general became suspicious of his newfound female companions’ sudden curiosity about nuclear physics and American military secrets, noting, “You need to watch out for that because that’s just like our training says, you know, people are trolling for information.”
But the vodka effect can also work the other way. State Department cables published by WikiLeaks, for instance, speak of Russian diplomats opening up and contradicting their own official talking points “after the second bottle of vodka,” while others across the former Soviet Union were simply amused by the traditional banquet and the inebriated spectacle that often results: “Although this drunk-fest is how many old-guard former Soviets do mutual business, it was most unusual for an American guest.”
Sometimes even the hard-drinking Soviets went too far, however. The teetotalling Anatoly Dobrynin, the longtime Soviet ambassador to the United States, grew accustomed to receiving all manner of drunken dial-ups on his dedicated Kremlin hotline. But Brezhnev’s 1973 diplomatic visit to Richard Nixon’s California compound, according to Dobrynin’s memoirs, forced the Soviet ambassador into “the most bizarre situation in all my years of diplomacy.” Brezhnev apparently continued drinking whiskey long after the evening’s relatively temperate American-style dinner, which culminated in an awkward late-night hallway encounter between the American president and the sodden Soviet leader. As the impromptu translator, Dobrynin was mortified that the drunken Brezhnev was intent on spilling to his Cold War enemy the details of Kremlin intrigues, and couldn’t stop complaining about the incessant nagging of his Politburo comrades. Eventually, Dobrynin and Nixon had to carry the drunken general secretary to his bed.
“Anatoly, did I talk too much yesterday?” a hung-over Brezhnev asked the following morning. Yes, he most certainly did, but the abstinent Dobrynin reassured him that he didn’t translate any sensitive or compromising revelations. “Well done,” Brezhnev replied. “Damn that whiskey, I am not used to it. I did not know I could not hold that much.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/vodka-russia-foreign-policy-101613_Page3.html
Happy New Year: A short history of booze diplomacy.
By MARK LAWRENCE SCHRAD
When it was French President Charles de Gaulle’s turn to be fêted nearing the end of World War II, he was horrified by a series of 30 toasts—more uneasy for the content of Stalin’s tributes than the alcohol itself. To rear army commander Andrei Khrulev (whose wife had just been arrested): “He’d better do his best, or he’ll be hanged for it, that’s the custom in our country!” To collectivization architect Lazar Kaganovich, who’d recently sacrificed his own brother to Stalin’s bloodthirsty paranoia: “a brave man. He knows that if the trains do not arrive on time—we shall shoot him!” To air force commander Aleksandr Novikov: “a good Marshal, let’s drink to him. And if he doesn’t do his job properly, we’ll hang him!” (Two years later, Novikov would be arrested, tortured, and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.) Reading the discomfort on his French guest’s face, Stalin put his hand on de Gaulle’s shoulder and smiled: “People call me a monster, but as you see, I make a joke of it. Maybe I’m not horrible after all.”
Whether aimed at foreign dignitaries or his own Politburo colleagues, one benefit of this banquet tradition was—according to Stalin’s longtime Politburo confidant Anastas Mikoyan—to “loosen our tongues, so that we couldn’t control what we said, and he would later know who was thinking what.” Indeed, from Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great to Joseph Stalin and Boris Yeltsin, Russian leaders have used alcohol to glean information from potential adversaries, both foreign and domestic. In the 1960s, Chinese Premier Zhao Enlai claimed that “Khrushchev got me drunk,” apparently in hopes of strengthening the Soviets’ bargaining position. In negotiating U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms restrictions into the early morning hours, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev pushed for greater American concessions while Henry Kissinger was exhausted and Nixon was drunk. As Nixon biographer James C. Humes explained: “With the Soviets it was often bombast followed by laughter; saber rattling giving way to smiles; and then the hard work of negotiation succeeded by hard drinking.”
Before becoming president of Russia, former KGB agent Vladimir Putin reportedly joked that “there are three ways to influence people: blackmail, vodka, and threatening to kill.” While it is difficult to verify this quote (as the investigative journalist died in a suspicious plane crash days after the article’s publication), it certainly reflects well-established tactics of international diplomacy. Blackmail is akin to economic strong-arming; saber-rattling is the threat to kill and vodka is the traditional banquet, which can often enhance the other two.
This brings us full circle to the Casey affair. By his own admission, while he was over-imbibing, the major general became suspicious of his newfound female companions’ sudden curiosity about nuclear physics and American military secrets, noting, “You need to watch out for that because that’s just like our training says, you know, people are trolling for information.”
But the vodka effect can also work the other way. State Department cables published by WikiLeaks, for instance, speak of Russian diplomats opening up and contradicting their own official talking points “after the second bottle of vodka,” while others across the former Soviet Union were simply amused by the traditional banquet and the inebriated spectacle that often results: “Although this drunk-fest is how many old-guard former Soviets do mutual business, it was most unusual for an American guest.”
Sometimes even the hard-drinking Soviets went too far, however. The teetotalling Anatoly Dobrynin, the longtime Soviet ambassador to the United States, grew accustomed to receiving all manner of drunken dial-ups on his dedicated Kremlin hotline. But Brezhnev’s 1973 diplomatic visit to Richard Nixon’s California compound, according to Dobrynin’s memoirs, forced the Soviet ambassador into “the most bizarre situation in all my years of diplomacy.” Brezhnev apparently continued drinking whiskey long after the evening’s relatively temperate American-style dinner, which culminated in an awkward late-night hallway encounter between the American president and the sodden Soviet leader. As the impromptu translator, Dobrynin was mortified that the drunken Brezhnev was intent on spilling to his Cold War enemy the details of Kremlin intrigues, and couldn’t stop complaining about the incessant nagging of his Politburo comrades. Eventually, Dobrynin and Nixon had to carry the drunken general secretary to his bed.
“Anatoly, did I talk too much yesterday?” a hung-over Brezhnev asked the following morning. Yes, he most certainly did, but the abstinent Dobrynin reassured him that he didn’t translate any sensitive or compromising revelations. “Well done,” Brezhnev replied. “Damn that whiskey, I am not used to it. I did not know I could not hold that much.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/vodka-russia-foreign-policy-101613_Page3.html
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
The Drinking Presidents
By Ben WrightPolitical correspondent, BBC News
"I've never had a drink," Donald Trump told Fox News after his election last November. Unlike George W Bush, who was teetotal in office after giving up booze on his 40th birthday, Mr Trump has eschewed alcohol his whole life, making him a first among modern US presidents.
The reason for Mr Trump's sobriety is because his adored older brother Freddie died of illness stemming from alcoholism at the age of 42. "It was a very tough period of time," he said, that convinced him never to drink.
"If you don't start you're never going have a problem. If you do start you might have a problem. And it's a tough problem to stop," Mr Trump told Fox.
What is fascinating is his view that one drink could spiral into addiction. He discussed his fear that he might have a gene that would make moderate drinking impossible.
His approach to alcohol is also a window into a personality that appears to crave control over others. Mr Trump ordered his children to follow his example. Every day he would drum the message into them: No drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes. "I've been very tough on my children with respect to drink," he said.
So how do the teetotal presidents compare with those who enjoyed the pleasures of a drink? George W Bush went dry after years of heavy boozing and swapped a compulsion for drink for an obsession with fitness.
Remembered largely for the invasion of Iraq, George W's foreign policy record might not be seen as the best advertisement for a teetotal presidency.
Nor might the idealistic but muddled foreign policy of Jimmy Carter, another teetotal president. Life in the Carter White House was drearily dry and a chore for its more sociable visitors.
Senator Ted Kennedy remembered arid evenings of earnest discussion. "You'd arrive about 6.00 or 6.30pm, and the first thing you would be reminded of, in case you needed reminding, was that he and Rosalynn had removed all the liquor in the White House. No liquor was ever served during Jimmy Carter's term. He wanted no luxuries nor any sign of worldly living," Kennedy wrote.
The moderate drinkers fare better. Franklin D Roosevelt frequently tops the list of America's greatest presidents, the commander-in-chief who defeated the Great Depression and led the US through World War Two.
Throughout these turbulent years, FDR kept a martini close at hand and prized the rituals of cocktail hour, when he mixed stiff drinks for friends on his White House study desk. The conviviality of cocktail hour undoubtedly helped FDR unwind and briefly relieved the immense pressure he was under.
John F Kennedy would occasionally sip a daiquiri but preferred women to wine and kept a clear head through the brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But other presidents were more reckless with their drinking.
Lyndon Johnson was well known in Washington for his capacity to guzzle Cutty Sark whisky and soda when he was Democratic majority leader in the Senate, a habit he took to the White House. Johnson, who told his doctor after a heart attack that the only things he enjoyed in life were "whisky, sunshine and sex", enjoyed entertaining at his Texas ranch where the booze flowed.
LBJ's special assistant for domestic affairs, Joseph A Califano, remembered a ride around the ranch with the president: "As we drove around we were followed by a car and a station wagon with Secret Service agents. The president drank Cutty Sark scotch and soda out of a large, white, plastic foam cup.
"Periodically, Johnson would slow down and hold his left arm outside the car, shaking the cup and ice. A Secret Service agent would run up to the car, take the cup and go back to the station wagon. There another agent would refill it with ice, scotch and soda as the first agent trotted behind the wagon."
But the most disturbing picture of presidential drinking is provided by Richard Nixon, a man prone to morose self-pity who medicated his moods with booze.
According to his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's trouble was that a small amount of drink would set him off and late-night threats of military action were made when the president was the worse for wear.
When North Korea shot down a US spy plane in April 1969, an enraged Nixon allegedly ordered a tactical nuclear strike and told the joint chiefs to recommend targets. According to the historian Anthony Summers, citing the CIA's top Vietnam specialist at the time, George Carver, Henry Kissinger spoke to military commanders on the phone and agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up in the morning.
By the early 1970s, Watergate was beginning to choke Nixon's presidency and the president was relying more on drink and sleeping pills to cope with the pressure. On the evening of 11 October 1973, he was incapable of speaking to the British Prime Minister Edward Heath on the phone.
Heath was keen to discuss the latest developments of the Arab-Israeli War but a transcript of the conversation between Henry Kissinger and his assistant Brent Scowcroft revealed the president was too drunk to talk to the prime minister.
Richard Nixon was a warning to future presidents on the danger of mixing hubris with drink. He is a reminder too of the awesome executive power a US president has when it comes to conducting foreign affairs.
With no previous political or military experience, Donald Trump is unlike any incoming president. His hubris is clear to all and his (sober) stream of excitable tweets prove an impetuous temperament.
Nixon's example might make us grateful booze is not in the mix too. But some of the most successful presidents found valuable perspective and balance at the bottom of a glass.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38651623
By Ben WrightPolitical correspondent, BBC News
"I've never had a drink," Donald Trump told Fox News after his election last November. Unlike George W Bush, who was teetotal in office after giving up booze on his 40th birthday, Mr Trump has eschewed alcohol his whole life, making him a first among modern US presidents.
The reason for Mr Trump's sobriety is because his adored older brother Freddie died of illness stemming from alcoholism at the age of 42. "It was a very tough period of time," he said, that convinced him never to drink.
"If you don't start you're never going have a problem. If you do start you might have a problem. And it's a tough problem to stop," Mr Trump told Fox.
What is fascinating is his view that one drink could spiral into addiction. He discussed his fear that he might have a gene that would make moderate drinking impossible.
His approach to alcohol is also a window into a personality that appears to crave control over others. Mr Trump ordered his children to follow his example. Every day he would drum the message into them: No drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes. "I've been very tough on my children with respect to drink," he said.
So how do the teetotal presidents compare with those who enjoyed the pleasures of a drink? George W Bush went dry after years of heavy boozing and swapped a compulsion for drink for an obsession with fitness.
Remembered largely for the invasion of Iraq, George W's foreign policy record might not be seen as the best advertisement for a teetotal presidency.
Nor might the idealistic but muddled foreign policy of Jimmy Carter, another teetotal president. Life in the Carter White House was drearily dry and a chore for its more sociable visitors.
Senator Ted Kennedy remembered arid evenings of earnest discussion. "You'd arrive about 6.00 or 6.30pm, and the first thing you would be reminded of, in case you needed reminding, was that he and Rosalynn had removed all the liquor in the White House. No liquor was ever served during Jimmy Carter's term. He wanted no luxuries nor any sign of worldly living," Kennedy wrote.
The moderate drinkers fare better. Franklin D Roosevelt frequently tops the list of America's greatest presidents, the commander-in-chief who defeated the Great Depression and led the US through World War Two.
Throughout these turbulent years, FDR kept a martini close at hand and prized the rituals of cocktail hour, when he mixed stiff drinks for friends on his White House study desk. The conviviality of cocktail hour undoubtedly helped FDR unwind and briefly relieved the immense pressure he was under.
John F Kennedy would occasionally sip a daiquiri but preferred women to wine and kept a clear head through the brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But other presidents were more reckless with their drinking.
Lyndon Johnson was well known in Washington for his capacity to guzzle Cutty Sark whisky and soda when he was Democratic majority leader in the Senate, a habit he took to the White House. Johnson, who told his doctor after a heart attack that the only things he enjoyed in life were "whisky, sunshine and sex", enjoyed entertaining at his Texas ranch where the booze flowed.
LBJ's special assistant for domestic affairs, Joseph A Califano, remembered a ride around the ranch with the president: "As we drove around we were followed by a car and a station wagon with Secret Service agents. The president drank Cutty Sark scotch and soda out of a large, white, plastic foam cup.
"Periodically, Johnson would slow down and hold his left arm outside the car, shaking the cup and ice. A Secret Service agent would run up to the car, take the cup and go back to the station wagon. There another agent would refill it with ice, scotch and soda as the first agent trotted behind the wagon."
But the most disturbing picture of presidential drinking is provided by Richard Nixon, a man prone to morose self-pity who medicated his moods with booze.
According to his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's trouble was that a small amount of drink would set him off and late-night threats of military action were made when the president was the worse for wear.
When North Korea shot down a US spy plane in April 1969, an enraged Nixon allegedly ordered a tactical nuclear strike and told the joint chiefs to recommend targets. According to the historian Anthony Summers, citing the CIA's top Vietnam specialist at the time, George Carver, Henry Kissinger spoke to military commanders on the phone and agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up in the morning.
By the early 1970s, Watergate was beginning to choke Nixon's presidency and the president was relying more on drink and sleeping pills to cope with the pressure. On the evening of 11 October 1973, he was incapable of speaking to the British Prime Minister Edward Heath on the phone.
Heath was keen to discuss the latest developments of the Arab-Israeli War but a transcript of the conversation between Henry Kissinger and his assistant Brent Scowcroft revealed the president was too drunk to talk to the prime minister.
Richard Nixon was a warning to future presidents on the danger of mixing hubris with drink. He is a reminder too of the awesome executive power a US president has when it comes to conducting foreign affairs.
With no previous political or military experience, Donald Trump is unlike any incoming president. His hubris is clear to all and his (sober) stream of excitable tweets prove an impetuous temperament.
Nixon's example might make us grateful booze is not in the mix too. But some of the most successful presidents found valuable perspective and balance at the bottom of a glass.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38651623
Last edited:
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
How To Drink Like A President
Lana BortolotContributor Lifestyle
President’s Day may be a three-day weekend for people, but for wine drinkers, it's also an opportunity to brush up on the history of our presidential imbibers.
Wine historians know some of this legacy: who was a teetotaler (George W. Bush and apparently the current White House occupant, who, ironically, owns a winery) and who enjoyed a tip of the bottle (too many mentions for a parenthetical).
They know who was stingy: Richard Nixon reportedly served guests cheap wines while he kept a bottle of Chateau Margaux swathed in a towel tableside for his own consumption. In his book, “Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking,” Mark Will-Weber notes Tricky Dick was known to drunk-dial major political figures late at night—what a prankster!
Aside from Nixon, a few others were a little sneaky about their habits. Herbert H. Hoover, like Nixon, was a Quaker, and also a wine collector who owned cellars in California and London. When the Mrs. dumped his precious wine collection at the onset of Prohibition, he enjoyed a tipple on the side while visiting friends at the Belgian embassy—considered foreign soil where Prohibition was ignored, writes Christopher Cumo in “The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanabortolot/2019/02/18/how-to-drink-like-a-president/#1447a5e3693a
Nixon was known to overindulge in alcohol, a habit that seemed to grow worse that spring. “I don’t think that it should be exaggerated,” said Winston Lord, an NSC aide. “However, there is no question that he had a problem.”
“He never could handle liquor,” his former press secretary Jim Bassett said, “and you had to be very careful with him about that.” On several occasions—the Apollo 13 drama, a banquet in China, an evening during the Yom Kippur War, a flight back from Denver—his aides reported that he drank to excess. Nixon’s daughter Julie and friend Billy Graham both acknowledged it after his presidency.
Ehrlichman, after watching a sodden Nixon make a clumsy pass at a young lady in 1964, had made him promise to lay off the stuff before agreeing to work for him. Garment remembered instances during the 1968 campaign when his exhausted friend—after a drink or a sleeping pill or both—would call him late at night and ramble on and on until Morpheus claimed him in midconversation. After one such phone call, in which Nixon passed into slumber, an inexperienced, panicky Charles Colson, Republican operative and special counsel to the president, called Manolo Sanchez, thinking the president had a stroke or a heart attack. Nixon apologized the next day; sleeping pills and jet lag had caught up with him, he said.
A beer and a sleeping pill, and Nixon began to mumble, Speechwriter Ray Price recalled. Two drinks and “his voice would become slurred,” said another Nixon speechwriter, William Safire. “He would reminisce … open himself up.” On a private jet to Florida during the 1968 campaign, Nixon had downed a quick scotch or two and began to cry as he spoke to his aides of his parents, Frank and Hannah, and Arthur and Harold, the two brothers who died in their youth. “People don’t know me,” he pitiably told his staff.
Three drinks? “He couldn’t handle it,” said veteran California strategist Stu Spencer. “He really got paranoid when he got three drinks in him. There are things I’m not even going to discuss that were said, but they were the result of drinking. He could not handle drink.” His White House tapes capture the tinkling of ice cubes on several occasions in which Nixon, coming down from the high of a nationally televised address or a prime-time press conference, starts slurring his words while polling friends and advisers on his performance. “When I talked to the president he was loaded,” Kissinger told a colleague, explaining why Nixon could not take a phone call from the British prime minister during a Mideast crisis.
Insomnia was a long-standing problem. Nixon augmented his prescription sleeping pills with Dilantin, an anti-seizure drug recommended by a friend, the businessman Jack Dreyfus, who championed the drug for an unintended use: to combat depression. The slurring of speech was one potential side effect.
Nixon “took all those sleeping pills that would give him a low in the morning and a high in the evening,” said his spiritual counselor, Billy Graham. The president’s failures could be blamed on “sleeping pills and demons,” said Graham. “All through history, drugs and demons have gone together. … They just let a demon-power come in and play over him.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/john-farrell-nixon-book-excerpt-214954
Lana BortolotContributor Lifestyle
President’s Day may be a three-day weekend for people, but for wine drinkers, it's also an opportunity to brush up on the history of our presidential imbibers.
Wine historians know some of this legacy: who was a teetotaler (George W. Bush and apparently the current White House occupant, who, ironically, owns a winery) and who enjoyed a tip of the bottle (too many mentions for a parenthetical).
They know who was stingy: Richard Nixon reportedly served guests cheap wines while he kept a bottle of Chateau Margaux swathed in a towel tableside for his own consumption. In his book, “Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking,” Mark Will-Weber notes Tricky Dick was known to drunk-dial major political figures late at night—what a prankster!
Aside from Nixon, a few others were a little sneaky about their habits. Herbert H. Hoover, like Nixon, was a Quaker, and also a wine collector who owned cellars in California and London. When the Mrs. dumped his precious wine collection at the onset of Prohibition, he enjoyed a tipple on the side while visiting friends at the Belgian embassy—considered foreign soil where Prohibition was ignored, writes Christopher Cumo in “The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanabortolot/2019/02/18/how-to-drink-like-a-president/#1447a5e3693a
Nixon was known to overindulge in alcohol, a habit that seemed to grow worse that spring. “I don’t think that it should be exaggerated,” said Winston Lord, an NSC aide. “However, there is no question that he had a problem.”
“He never could handle liquor,” his former press secretary Jim Bassett said, “and you had to be very careful with him about that.” On several occasions—the Apollo 13 drama, a banquet in China, an evening during the Yom Kippur War, a flight back from Denver—his aides reported that he drank to excess. Nixon’s daughter Julie and friend Billy Graham both acknowledged it after his presidency.
Ehrlichman, after watching a sodden Nixon make a clumsy pass at a young lady in 1964, had made him promise to lay off the stuff before agreeing to work for him. Garment remembered instances during the 1968 campaign when his exhausted friend—after a drink or a sleeping pill or both—would call him late at night and ramble on and on until Morpheus claimed him in midconversation. After one such phone call, in which Nixon passed into slumber, an inexperienced, panicky Charles Colson, Republican operative and special counsel to the president, called Manolo Sanchez, thinking the president had a stroke or a heart attack. Nixon apologized the next day; sleeping pills and jet lag had caught up with him, he said.
A beer and a sleeping pill, and Nixon began to mumble, Speechwriter Ray Price recalled. Two drinks and “his voice would become slurred,” said another Nixon speechwriter, William Safire. “He would reminisce … open himself up.” On a private jet to Florida during the 1968 campaign, Nixon had downed a quick scotch or two and began to cry as he spoke to his aides of his parents, Frank and Hannah, and Arthur and Harold, the two brothers who died in their youth. “People don’t know me,” he pitiably told his staff.
Three drinks? “He couldn’t handle it,” said veteran California strategist Stu Spencer. “He really got paranoid when he got three drinks in him. There are things I’m not even going to discuss that were said, but they were the result of drinking. He could not handle drink.” His White House tapes capture the tinkling of ice cubes on several occasions in which Nixon, coming down from the high of a nationally televised address or a prime-time press conference, starts slurring his words while polling friends and advisers on his performance. “When I talked to the president he was loaded,” Kissinger told a colleague, explaining why Nixon could not take a phone call from the British prime minister during a Mideast crisis.
Insomnia was a long-standing problem. Nixon augmented his prescription sleeping pills with Dilantin, an anti-seizure drug recommended by a friend, the businessman Jack Dreyfus, who championed the drug for an unintended use: to combat depression. The slurring of speech was one potential side effect.
Nixon “took all those sleeping pills that would give him a low in the morning and a high in the evening,” said his spiritual counselor, Billy Graham. The president’s failures could be blamed on “sleeping pills and demons,” said Graham. “All through history, drugs and demons have gone together. … They just let a demon-power come in and play over him.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/john-farrell-nixon-book-excerpt-214954
MurraysMetalHip
Hall of Fame
Today I bought three new bottles of gin, as we have a bit of a pre-crimbo gathering on Sunday. I’ve opened one of them (Gin Mare) and I have to say that it is very tasty. If the other two match or exceed it they will be very special indeed.
stringertom
Bionic Poster
At $2.99/bottle from Whole Foods, I won’t complain about the Three Wishes Cab Sauv I’ve been enjoying with dinners these last few weeks.
stringertom
Bionic Poster
Andrea Hlavackova approves your message!This is a drunk post. Cheers.
Sir Weed
Hall of Fame
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Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
I have been to Prague several times over a period of many years, the first being in 1991 after college. My first time in Prague, I stayed on the outskirts of Prague and there was a kiosk that sold big cans (or bottles?) of strong beer. I would walk by the kiosk on my way to the train station, and there were always a bunch of guys drinking beer all day.
The beer in Prague is amazing. There are so many different great beers that I lost track.
Back to Andrea:
Andrea Hlavackova: The Beer Interview
Sir Weed
Hall of Fame
Hell yes. I've been to Český Krumlov this year and had a fantastic time. Tennis, beer... and the most friendliest hotel manager I've ever met. I think I'm going to send him a card to wish him and his team a good 2020.
A lot has changed in Praha since 91!
I lived in Plzen for a while. Love the place, especially the beer!
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Sir Weed
Hall of Fame
What do you think about Hřib? He seems to be smart, pragmatic and looks good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdeněk_Hřib
stringertom
Bionic Poster
1968 was a tragic year all over the world (Tet offensive in Vietnam, MLK and RFK murdered, the Chicago riots and police brutality) and it extended to the suppression of the Prague Spring movement led by Alexander Dubcek when Russian tanks rolled in and forced the leader to resign. That short glimpse at freedom did have lasting impact though (film icon Milos Forman and tennis legends Martina and Ivan eventually emigrating) and made the Velvet Revolution a generation later even more impactful.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
I have been there a few times, including pretty recently. It was great in 1991 before there were many tourists and everything was geared for Czechs. In 1994, it was already getting crowded with tourists, and the Czechs were getting annoyed at getting priced out of restaurants and clubs. Some young Czechs told me how frustrated they were about the changing nightlife.
By the 2000s, it had become a hang-out for young people from other countries who wanted a cheap (for them) and hip place to live for awhile. It's been packed with tourists for a couple of decades now. It's a little more crowded, but still a great place to live and visit.
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Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
There was a brief period of cultural freedom in the 1960s before the Russians clamped down. Milos Forman left for Hollywood.
Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (/ˈmiːloʊʃ/;[1] Czech: [ˈmɪloʃ ˈforman]; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech-American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States 1968.
Forman was an important figure in the Czechoslovak New Wave. Film scholars and Czechoslovakian authorities saw his 1967 film The Firemen's Ball as a biting satire on Eastern European Communism, and it was banned for many years in his home country. He left Czechoslovakia for the United States, and his films One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984) acquired particular renown and for both films he won the Academy Award for Best Director. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was the second film to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor in Leading Role, Actress in Leading Role, Director, and Screenplay).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miloš_Forman
"THE FIREMEN'S BALL" (ČSSR | Italy 1967)
Back to drinking:
"Daisies"
Sysyphus
Talk Tennis Guru
guys, I'm drinking glühwein, or gløgg if you will, with cut almonds and raisins. granted, it's not in the afternoon, but i think the health benefits may still obtain. might make you gløgg, in fact.
merry drinkmás*
* drinkmás -- derived from the English word drink and the Spanish word más (meaning 'more').
merry drinkmás*
* drinkmás -- derived from the English word drink and the Spanish word más (meaning 'more').
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
What is it spiked with?guys, I'm drinking glühwein, or gløgg if you will, with cut almonds and raisins. granted, it's no in the afternoon, but i think the health benefits may still obtain. might make you gløgg, in fact.
merry drinkmás*
* drinkmás -- derived from the English word drink and the Spanish word más (meaning 'more').
Sysyphus
Talk Tennis Guru
alcohol!!
no. The one I'm drinking is Swedish and comes with a 12% abv (it's glowing wein after all), which is already pleasant. A little birdie told me that a dash of vodka would do no harm, though, or some calvados for the initiated.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
My impression is that in Denmark everyone spikes gløgg with much more than a dash of hard alcohol. Did you see the tame versions I posted at the top of this page?
Sysyphus
Talk Tennis Guru
if one were to put one's finger on what little jeg-ved-ikke-hvad separates the Danish from Swedes and Norwegians, I think this would get right to the heart of it.
Sir Weed
Hall of Fame
I'm gonna hang three days nonstop. OK, I can't. On court tomorrow with Dr. (LOL) Jim Loehrs 16 sec cure. Not sure if those 16 seconds will apply to my hangover.
1. Reaction (more beer)
2. Relaxation (more beer)
3. Preparation (more beer)
4. Ritual/Execution (open can of beer)
1. Reaction (more beer)
2. Relaxation (more beer)
3. Preparation (more beer)
4. Ritual/Execution (open can of beer)
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Pilsner Urquell? What are your favorite Czech beers?
I don't really know much about him. I'm not Czech, but my former partner's name is Zdenka and her father was Zdenek. Common name
My abovementioned former partner was only 7 years old the day the tanks rolled in and remembers it vividly. She said the sound was deafening and although they could see for miles, heard them coming long before they saw anything. She got out while competing in international sport and her family was persecuted. Her father was a successful doctor and got moved to being a prison doctor, then removed from that because it was claimed he was passing information from his daughter in the west to Havel while he was in prison. All bullsh1t, of course
It's a beautiful country and back on topic, the HOME of beer. If anyone gets the chance to tour the old Prazdroj brewery in Plzen, do it.
Sir Weed
Hall of Fame
Plzeň though my favorites are dark draught beers: Velkopopovický Kozel, Krušovice, Budějovický Budvar. But I'm not too picky because I wouldn't say no to having a warm Coors Light since I ran out of beer.
What are our fave beverages in the morning/afternoon, Mr. Bulgakov?
I don't think you should put those on the page, let alone the same line.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
I mostly drink vicariously these days, but I drank a lot in my twenties and thirties when I often traveled and lived outside of the country, and I went to a lot of clubs and parties when I was home in Los Angeles. It never caused problems, but I figured that I had enough of late nights.
I liked European and Japanese beers, Anchor Liberty Ale, Guinness, Stolichnaya and Beefeater martinis with olives and almost no vermouth, single malt Irish whiskeys (never got into the peaty Scotch whisky single malts). Mixed drinks were usually Jack Daniels, Jim Beam Black, or Wild Turkey with ginger ale, but I rarely had mixed drinks. I liked the taste of Jack Daniels on ice. Red wine never sat well with me and often gave me a headache.
When traveling: usually Tuborg Gold in Denmark; whatever people were drinking in Sweden; beer and vodka in Finland; traditional vodka shots or beer in Russia; red wine and beer in Paris; Guinness and sometimes whiskey in Ireland; beer (and wine with dinner) in Prague; local beer (often Beijing beer) or imported beer in China; Japanese beer and Japanese whiskey in Tokyo; and local favorites in other countries.
Sysyphus
Talk Tennis Guru
fellas, I'm currently enjoying some port, or vinho do Porto, if you insist. It goes lovely with some stilton, it really does. Add some walnuts gently glazed with some acacia honey, and we are truly in business.
Take care, and remember to drink in the afternoon. Votos calorosos!
(important to capitalize on these times when it is socially acceptable in large parts of the world.)
Take care, and remember to drink in the afternoon. Votos calorosos!
(important to capitalize on these times when it is socially acceptable in large parts of the world.)
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
That's a nice port, so I hope you're not using it for gløgg!fellas, I'm currently enjoying some port, or vinho do Porto, if you insist. It goes lovely with some stilton, it really does. Add some walnuts gently glazed with some acacia honey, and we are truly in business.
Take care, and remember to drink in the afternoon. Votos calorosos!
(important to capitalize on these times when it is socially acceptable in large parts of the world.)
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Christmas Hangover?
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Ronaldo
Bionic Poster
stringertom
Bionic Poster
Hands two large.
Ronaldo
Bionic Poster
Kim Jong-un agrees
MurraysMetalHip
Hall of Fame
Two more gins added to the collection today. At this rate I’ll need to move some of wifeys vino out of the cellar.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Is there much nuance and complexity to gin, as with Scottish single malts? I was a basic gin martini drinker, usually opting for Beefeater. My father liked basic Tanqueray dry martinis, which was the first gin I tried.
Is Bombay Sapphire too complex?
What about akvavits?
stringertom
Bionic Poster
Or Dutch jenever???Is there much nuance and complexity to gin, as with Scottish single malts? I was a basic gin martini drinker, usually opting for Beefeater. My father liked basic Tanqueray dry martinis, which was the first gin I tried.
Is Bombay Sapphire too complex?
What about akvavits?
MurraysMetalHip
Hall of Fame
Is there much nuance and complexity to gin, as with Scottish single malts? I was a basic gin martini drinker, usually opting for Beefeater. My father liked basic Tanqueray dry martinis, which was the first gin I tried.
Is Bombay Sapphire too complex?
What about akvavits?
Most gins are flavoured with juniper, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end, especially with the higher end stuff. Every distillery has its own preference in use of botanicals, citrus etc. Some use fruit too.
Bombay sapphire is quite a citrusy gin, and it makes a pretty decent G&T. I can’t say I have ever heard of Akvavits.
A lot of the cheaper gins taste pretty bad. Gordon’s is probably one of the most popular here in the U.K., but in my view it tastes like painstripper, and is only popular because it’s cheap. Gins such as The Botanist, Silent Pool, Gin Mare, Roku, Ginstr are far more expensive, but you can really taste the difference in quality. It’s also important to mix it with a decent tonic. My tonic of choice is Fever Tree, either Indian or elderflower.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Aalborg Taffel Bottling Note
Aalborg Taffel is a classic Aquavit, released in 1846. It has a lovely caraway, citrus flavour, and was heralded as Best Aquavit in the World at the 2002 International Wine and Spirit Competition.
https://www.celticwhiskeyshop.com/image/cache/Liqueurs/Aalborg-Akvavit-776x1176.jpg
AALBORG IS THE TOAST OF AQUAVIT DRINKERS
Say ''aquavit'' - or, if you're the monosyllabic type, ''schnapps'' - to a Danish bartender and you'll trigger a small, riveting ritual. A cone-shaped frosted glass about the size of a large thimble will be plucked from the freezer. A similarly chilled bottle of aquavit will be presented for inspection, then poured, the thick liquid rising to the rim of the glass, stopping just above it.
To complete the ritual, bring the icy spirit to your lips, look your drinking partner in the eye, utter a hearty ''skoal'' and toss it down.
Aquavit, also spelled akvavit, is available worldwide, but in limited variety. To sample the full range, one must visit Scandinavia, and there's no better place for aquavit than Aalborg, a friendly city of about 160,000 people in the North Jutland area of Denmark. It is the home of De Danske Spritfabrikken (Danish Distillers Ltd.), producers of Aalborg Akvavit, the world's largest-selling brand, and 11 others.
Aquavit is a distilled spirit made from grain or potatoes, much like vodka. What sets it apart is the addition of distilled extracts of a range of herbs and spices. Caraway is the most common flavoring, the one most people think of when they think of aquavit. But dill, coriander, citrus, cinnamon and Madeira are also widely used
The name itself means water of life (like aqua vitae, eau de vie and Lebenswasser). Aquavit is also made in West Germany, Greenland, Finland, Sweden and Norway, but the world market is dominated by Denmark, where distilling has been traced back to around 1400. In 1555, King Christian III established a royal distillery.
By the mid-19th century, large-scale distilling had begun with Aalborg as the center. Danish Distillers was formed in 1881 and today it produces half the aquavit consumed worldwide and 90 percent of Denmark's supply.
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/12/09/travel/aalborg-is-the-toast-of-aquavit-drinkers.html
