Alcohol and Drugs History Society

New "green" distillery built in Scotland

A giant new environmentally sound, distillery has built on Speyside at Roseisle.  Although the USA is a major importer of Scotch whiskey it buys only slightly more than does Spain and much less than does France.  For more, see here.

Chocolate and fasting in early modern Spain (article)

Beth Marie Forrest and April L. Naijaj, "Is Sipping Sin Breaking Fast? The Catholic Chocolate Controversy and the Changing World of Early Modern Spain," Food and Foodways 15/1 (2007): 31-52.

Altadis promotes tobacco on its internal web site, Le Lab

Altadis, based on a merger of old French and Spanish tobacco monopolies, encourages its brand managers with an internal web site, Le Lab. Altadis sells, among other brands, Fortuna in Spain and Gauloises in France. For more, see here.

Spanish wine family moves to higher ground because of climate change

The Torres family has purchased land near the Pyrennees for new vineyards as a result of climate change. For more, see here.

Coffee: who grows it? who drinks it?

India's Financial Times, 5 Feburary 2007, reports on who grows and who drinks coffee. Although there are 25 kinds of coffee grown, two varieties dominate, (mostly) Arabica and (secondly) Robusta. The major producers are Brazil (33.16%), Columbia (11.65%), Vietnam (10.61%), Indonesia (5.97%), Mexico (4.59%) and India (4.60%) that combined produce about 70% of the world's coffee. The major consumers are the United States, Canada, Japan. Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Spain. As an Indian newspaper, the Financial Times mentions that India consumes 30% of the coffee that it grows. For more, see here.

Frontwide World, May 2003, lists the top 10 coffee-importing countries, in order of amount imported, as the United States, Germany (less than half that of the USA), Japan, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Netherlands. Per capita the Scandinavian countries drink the most coffee, with Finland averaging more than four cups a day per person. This website lists the ten leading coffee producers, in order of amount produced, as Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Ivory Coast and Uganda. Nearly 25 million farmers grow coffee in more than fifty countries. For more, see here.

Italy exports wine valued at a billion dollars to the USA

In 2006 for the first time Italy exported a billion dollars' worth of wine to the United States. Italian wine exports to America were twice those of France, four times those of Chile, and seven times those of Spain. Australia ranks next to Italy in exporting wine to the USA. Italy surpassed France in wine exports to America beginning in 1983. For more, see here.

Cocaine on Euro notes in Spain

According to the BBC, traces of cocaine has been found on 94% of Euro notes circulating in Spain. With 475,000 regular users, Spain has one of the highest rates of cocaine use in the world. Some of the currency may have been contaminated when cocaine users rolled the notes into a funnel to snort the drug. For more, see here.

Wine in Jewish culture

Esther Querub writes about the role of wine in Jewish culture in connection with the fifth Sephardic Conference of La Rioja, Spain, in YNetNews.com, Nov. 20, 2006. The conference took place last week in San Millán and at the Wine Museum Dinastía Vivanco in Briones. The conference adopted its name from the Jewish toast, Lehayim, "To life." For more, see here.

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.

Valencian Culture (article)

Oxford, Jeffrey. “Alcoholic Implications: A Catalyst of Valencian Culture.” In Jane Lilienfeld and Jeffrey Oxford, eds., The Languages of Addiction (New York: St. Martin’s, 1999), 161-173.