Saturday 25 January 2003

Pic of the day: Tested this can of 4.7% pear "cider". It tastes less disgusting than beer. It tastes of chemicals though. Not something I'd like to drink a whole can of, not to mention a six-pack.

Rusbrus

"Rusbrus" (pronounced with long u's, like "Bruce") is the Norwegian word for alcoholic soda. ("Intoxication soda" would be a more literal translation.) I believe it is a fairly new word; you certainly did not hear it often until the last few years. Then again, you did not see the product either. Some people did mix soda with whiskey or vodka or even rum. Well, at least cola was mixed with rum. Anyway, that was something you did in private or not at all, especially if you were a young man.

Beer. It is the drink of choice for young manly men who are really manly and masculine and stuff, and who need the world to know. Never mind that it tastes like water with yeast. The point is not to taste it but to get drunk so you have an excuse for your behavior. If you care about taste, you are not worthy. I guess there's some kind of old puritan morality in this. I understand that some nations actually have beer that doesn't taste quite so bad, but much like the American with their fake Budweiser, manly Norwegian men don't really care. It is beer, and they get drunk eventually.

Actually, there has been an increase in the sale of finer wines here in Norway as we keep growing richer. But that's mostly for the well-off parent generation.

The introduction of ready-made alcoholic soda did cause a small stir, but not much. After all, it got like 5% or less alcohol just like most of the beer here, but while beer is sold in the supermarket and local grocery, you had to go to the liquor store to get the corresponding soda. And liquor stores are few and far between here in Norway. So it was mostly for urban girls. Until the European Union intervened.

***

Yes indeed. And Norway isn't even a member of the European Union yet, thank the Light. If they treat us like this when we're engaged, we shouldn't be in any hurry to marry. OK, I'll explain this a bit for the truly overseas reader. You see, nearly all of western Europe is welded together in a confederation called the European Union. It is kinda like the USA, except it's in Europe and it consists of states that have a long history as independent nations. Quite a number of them have their own languages, and they also had their own coins until recently. I think they may still have their own post stamps. Over the last couple generations, the European Union has become a more and more nation-like thing, with common laws and various federal institutions. This has happened mostly whether or not the citizens liked it. They tend to come along eventually. But in Norway, we have twice rejected the European Union in referendum. The political elite therefore chose to engage in a reduced version of membership, by founding a common European Economic Area together with the EU and a couple other fringe countries. Legal experts vouched that this was not against our constitution. But the net effect is that we have to adopt the EU laws and regulations, or quit the membership, in which case we will lose all our free trade contracts with all member countries.

This time, the European Union's regulations say that you cannot treat two kinds of alcoholic beverages differently if they contain roughly equal amounts of alcohol, and one of the types is more likely to be imported than the other. Actually, there is no burden of proof as to the import thing ... you just can't treat them differently, period. And we do make a LOT more beer than alcoholic soda here in Norway, so it would not help trying to take it to court. The laws are already in place, and we have to stick to them or stop exporting our fish and our software and tombstones and stuff like that which we are really good at.

So, from January 1st this year, after the maximum allowed foot-dragging, hesitation, delay and procrastination, "rusbrus" made its way into the supermarket and wayside friendly neighborhood store. (Actually there are terribly few of the neighborhood stores ... almost all common items are sold through a few dominant chains, who compete on price when they compete at all, which they don't do as much as they could.) And now suddenly the stuff is produced locally in sufficient quantities to cover the nation's consumption. Some breweries try to pack it so it looks like beer at a distance (you don't want to be seen with girly drinks after all) while others make it look like ordinary soda (because it's OK to drink ordinary soda too). But there you have it. Now you can have your small alcohol intake without puking from the yeast. Or so I think. Extensive testing lies ahead before I can confirm this.

***

Moderate drinking of alcohol is said to be good for your health. Moderate means like 1 glass (of whatever size corresponds to your beverage type ... not 1 beer jug of vodka please) a day for women, twice that for men. Those who drink this much but no more are reported to have less heart problems than those who drink more or nothing at all. Studies in several nations have borne this out. At first it was supposed to only be red wine, but then Danish researchers discovered that the same was true for beer (they are our neighbors and like beer too). Soon even brandy was included in the happy family.

Of course, these studies are of the sociological type, which real scientist consider less useful than toilet paper. The true scientist would require a large group of volunteers, divide them randomly in three groups. One would be required to abstain from alcohol; the other to drink 1-2 glasses a day; the third to drink more, preferably significantly more. Then after some years, the frequency of various illnesses would be measured. But such studies are considered unethical (not to mention impossible). Reporting simple correlations as if they were effect is considered ethical, evidently. There are alternative explanations here: For instance, people with low income are more likely to drink nothing (because alcohol is rather expensive and reduces work capacity) or a lot (which could explain the low income). So those already most successful in life would drink in moderation. What if they also had other health benefits? It so happens that they have. The upper classes, or more exactly the educated classes, have a longer life expectancy. They take better care of their health in many ways: They eat more varied food, exercise regularly but not extremely, and are conspicuously absent from dangerous workplaces.

So we don't really know whether small amounts of alcohol is good for the body. What we know is that it is not dramatically dangerous ... as long as you don't drink enough to engage in risky behavior. And now, thanks to the European Union, it also tastes good. Or at least better. (Or at least it was supposed to. My one experiment so far tasted of disgusting chemicals.)