Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Coffee as a substitute for alcohol in 19th-century Norway (article)

Ole-Jørgen Skog, "Studying Cultural Change: Were the Changes in Alcohol and Coffee Consumption in the Nineteenth Century a Case of Beverage Substitution," Acta Sociologica 49/3 (September 2006): 287-302.  Evidence from Norway.

Scandinavian brewing history (articles)

Most of the British publication Brewery History, no. 121 (2009) consists of a special Scandinavian theme.

Siri Aanstad, "Introduction: the Scandinavian Brewing Industry" (26-28)

Siri Aanstad, "A Small, Global Adventure: Mapping Norwegian Beer Exports in the 19th Century" (29-50)

Martin Jes Iversen and Andrew Arnold, "Carlsberg: From Exporter to an Integrated Multinational Enterprise" (51-62)

Martin Jes Iversen, "Carlsberg and the Cartels" (63-67)

Peter Sandberg, "The Pressure of New Innovations on Transnational Cartels and Trade Organisations: The Tin Can and the Increased Competition between the Swedish and Danish Brewing Industries since the 1950s" (68-85)

Norway's aquavit

Norway's potato-based spirit akevitt (aquavit for foreigners) is seldom drunk in the USA, and few Norwegian brands are available in America. Aquavit is also produced throughout Scandinavia and northern Germany. For more, see here. According to the article, Norwegian distillers call potatoes the grapes of the North.

Drunkenness in Norwegian merchant marine (article)

Dagmund Moldestad, "'What shall we do with the drunken sailor': alkohol og relaterte sosiale problem in den norske handelsflåten 1945-1965," Sjofartshistorisk Arbok (2005): 302-429. Subtitle translated as alcohol and related social problems in the Norwegian merchant fleet, 1945-65.

How café culture influenced writers and artists

Ibsen, Satre and Dali worked best with a glass in front of them. A new book explores the contribution made by café culture to their greatest creations. The Independent reports.

Drugs and cemeteries

Youths traveling to pick hallucinogenic mushrooms at a cemetery in Norway are causing concern for locals. Aftenposten reports.

Norwegian temperance history

Per Fuglam is the leading authority on the Norwegian temperance movement.  He wrote the standard work, Kampen om alkoholen i Norge 1816-1904 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1972).  More recently, he published Et onde avskaffer man! :
arbeiderbevegelsen og alkoholen fra Marcus Thrane til forbudstiden (Trondheim : Historisk institutt, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, 1999). Ole Kallelid and Leif Kjetil Skjæveland have contributed a regional study, Avholdsbyen:  historien om avholdsbevegelsen i Stavanger (Stavanger: Promenaden, 1996).

Drinking in Europe since the Middle Ages (book)

Here is a collection of essays: Peter Scholliers, ed., Food, drink and identity: cooking, eating and drinking in Europe since the Middle Ages. New York: Berg, 2001. I've selected the categories while looking at the table of contents.

Oslow woman gets beer from her kitchen faucet

It almost seemed like a miracle to Haldis Gundersen when she turned on her kitchen faucet this weekend and found the water had turned into beer. Two flights down, employees and customers at the Big Tower Bar were horrified when water poured out of the beer taps.

By an improbable feat of clumsy plumbing, someone at the bar in Kristiandsund, western Norway, had accidentally hooked the beer hoses to the water pipes for Gundersen's apartment.

Read more.

'No one can say Europe isn't tackling at least one issue'

With the United Kingdom last week joining the growing list of nations to ban smoking in public places, a list that includes Norway, Ireland, Italy and Sweden -- and may soon include Germany and France -- it seems probable, argues The Standard in China, that the whole continent will be a smoke-free zone by the end of the decade.