Alcohol has many ways of sneaking up on you during the holidays. For starters, you might be tired from holiday chaos with one family visit piled on top of another. Alcohol hits you harder when you're tired. Also, alcohol doesn't completely burn off when cooked in those festive dishes you might encounter, counter to what is said colloquially. Alcohol evaporates at around 175° F, so slow cooking and simmering won't burn off anything. Baking for an hour will still leave 25 percent of the booze. Flaming it for that dramatic walk to the table can still leave most of alcohol behind. So consider your rum-accented glaze as fully spiked. When fixing yourself or a friend a drink, it's easy to be too generous. Short, wide glasses typical in formal settings are easier to over-pour compared to tall glasses. Legitimate studies have been conducted on this, such as one published in 2005 in the British Medical Journal finding that even experienced bartenders routinely overestimated a shot of booze by over 20 percent in such a glass. So between fatigue, rum cake and what you thought was just two mixed drinks, you could find yourself further down the road to tipsy than expected.
Doctor Dave, what an informative and timely message. I visit this blog often and it is always interesting and informative, please keep it going. Hope you & loved ones have a great holiday and the best for the new year.
ReplyDelete