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Introduction

A cocktail glass
A cocktail glass
Swan necked copper pot stills in the Glenfiddich distillery

Liquor (/ˈlɪkər/ LIK-ər) is an alcoholic drink produced by the distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. Other terms for liquor include: spirit, distilled beverage, booze, spirituous liquor or hard liquor. The distillation process concentrates the liquid to increase its alcohol by volume. As liquors contain significantly more alcohol (ethanol) than other alcoholic drinks, they are considered "harder." In North America, the term hard liquor is sometimes used to distinguish distilled alcoholic drinks from non-distilled ones, whereas the term spirits is more commonly used in the UK. Some examples of liquors include vodka, rum, gin, and tequila. Liquors are often aged in barrels, such as for the production of brandy and whiskey, or are infused with flavorings to form flavored liquors, such as absinthe.

While the word liquor ordinarily refers to distilled alcoholic spirits rather than beverages produced by fermentation alone, it can sometimes be used more broadly to refer to any alcoholic beverage (or even non-alcoholic products of distillation or various other liquids). (Full article...)

Four Loko beverage, a common caffeinated alcoholic beverage

The 17 November 2010 United States ban on caffeinated alcoholic drinks is a ban which prevents the marketing and distribution of any prepackaged caffeinated alcoholic drink.

Such a ban was discussed as a result of multiple cases of alcohol poisoning and alcohol-related blackouts among users of such drinks. The majority of these alcohol poisoning cases were found on college campuses throughout the United States. Caffeinated alcoholic drinks such as Four Loko, Joose, Sparks and Tilt were the most popular around the U.S. The beverages, which combine malt liquor or other grain alcohol with caffeine and juices at alcohol concentrations up to about 14 percent, had become popular among younger generations. Their consumption had been associated with increased risk of serious injury, drunken driving, sexual assault and other detrimental behavior. (Full article...)
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DeGroff in 2010

Dale DeGroff (born September 21, 1948, Rhode Island), also known as "the King of Cocktails" or "King Cocktail", is an American bartender and author. The New York Times in 2015 called DeGroff "one of the world's foremost cocktail experts", and wrote that his book The Craft of the Cocktail is considered an essential bartending reference. From 1987 to 1999 DeGroff rose to prominence as the original chief bartender in the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center in New York City, where his then-unusual emphasis on classic cocktail recipes and high-quality ingredients led to substantial acclaim and emulation by many other bars in New York City and beyond, and helped influence the creation of the craft cocktail movement.

He is the founding president of the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans, founded in 2005. He is also a partner and consultant in the Beverage Alcohol Resource (BAR) group. (Full article...)

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  • ... that one-sixth of all liquor establishments in Bombay were attacked in the 1921 Prince of Wales riots?
  • ... that Thomas Dickson Archibald, when speaking against increasing fines for violating liquor licenses, said "we need only go a step further and make the violation a hanging matter"?
  • ... that to comply with a law that restricted liquor sales near churches, the Peninsula New York placed its cocktail lounge up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway?

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Jesus making wine from water in The Marriage at Cana, a 14th-century fresco from the Visoki Dečani monastery

Christian views on alcohol are varied. Throughout the first 1,800 years of Church history, Christians generally consumed alcoholic beverages as a common part of everyday life and used "the fruit of the vine" in their central rite—the Eucharist or Lord's Supper. They held that both the Bible and Christian tradition taught that alcohol is a gift from God that makes life more joyous, but that over-indulgence leading to drunkenness is sinful. However, the alcoholic content of ancient alcoholic beverages was significantly lower than that of modern alcoholic beverages. The low alcoholic content was due to the limitations of fermentation and the nonexistence of distillation methods in the ancient world. Rabbinic teachers wrote acceptance criteria on consumability of ancient alcoholic beverages after significant dilution with water, and prohibited undiluted wine.

In the mid-19th century, some Protestant Christians moved from a position of allowing moderate use of alcohol (sometimes called "'moderationism") to either deciding that not imbibing was wisest in the present circumstances ("abstentionism") or prohibiting all ordinary consumption of alcohol because it was believed to be a sin ("prohibitionism"). Many Protestant churches, particularly Methodists, advocated abstentionism or prohibitionism and were early leaders in the temperance movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, all three positions exist in Christianity, but the original position of alcohol consumption being permissible remains the most common and dominant view among Christians worldwide, in addition to the adherence by the largest bodies of Christian denominations, such as Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. (Full article...)

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Local distilled beverages at the market in a village below Mount Popa in Myanmar

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