tidbits vernon 257 feb 5 2016 bottles online

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• Armstrong • Cherryville • Coldstream • Falkland • Lavington • Lumby • Silver Star • Spallumcheen • Vernon • Westside Rd •

February 5 - 11, 2016 Issue 00257

TIDBITS® DRINKS FROM

BOTTLESby Janet Spencer

In honor of the fact that William Painter patented the � rst bottle cap on February 2, 1892, Tidbits will be drinking from bottles this week!

A NEW INVENTION• One of Napoleon’s biggest problems during

war was food. No matter how much food his soldiers took with them, it spoiled. Finally, Napoleon o� ered a prize to anyone who could invent a way to preserve food.

• Nicholas Appert had grown up working in his father’s wine cellars. He was intrigued with the idea that wine would never go bad if it was bottled correctly. He wondered what would happen to other foods if they were bottled. He tried soups and stews, then fruits and vegetables and milk. When the bottles were sterilized, � lled, corked, and heated, the results were excellent.

• He took his discovery to Napoleon, and was awarded 12,000 francs. Appert had invented canning, although it was years before cans were used instead of bottles. It was years after that before the can opener was invented. Before that, it took a hammer and chisel to open a can. In fact, some people believe that the bayonet (invented in the French town of Bayonne) was developed not to spear people, but merely to open cans!

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MORE BOTTLE FACTS• Before bottle caps were invented, bottles were

sealed with corks. Often bottles would blow their tops if the substance inside was � zzy such as wine or beer. William Painter – a proli� c inventor – solved the problem by inventing the ‘crown’ bottle cap, the design still used today. It is called the crown cap because it looks like a tiny crown. A year later, Painter also invented the bottle opener.

• Milk was originally sold by the dipperful from open cans. Henry � atcher was standing in line one day in 1883 to buy some milk. � e little girl ahead of him accidentally dropped her � lthy rag doll into the open can of milk. � e milk man � shed the doll out, then turned to Mr. � atcher to serve him. � atcher decided he didn’t need any milk that day after all. � e following year he patented the � rst milk bottle with a sanitary seal. Soon all milk was sold in bottles.

• An o� cial in the Coca-Cola company wanted the design of the bottles to be so distinctive that a bottle could be recognized in the dark, or if it was broken. In 1913 the prototype of the shapely bottle we still use was introduced. It was patterned after a cola nut: bulging at the sides with ridges.

• Early soda pop bottlers had trouble � nding bottles that wouldn’t explode. � ey had to wait for heavy mass produced bottles to be invented.

• A man named Colonel Taylor wanted to raise the popularity of his bourbon, named Old Taylor. He hired men to collect empty bottles of Old Taylor, and shipped three freight car loads to New York City. Another crew set up the empty bottles on mantels and shelves in bars, restaurants, and clubs all across town. Having rows of empties gave the impression the Old Taylor was the most

popular drink in the town, and New Yorkers began to order.

PLASTIC• In the mid-1970s, Portugal over-cut their cork

oak forests and failed to replant. � e result was a worldwide cork shortage, leading to the development of plastic stoppers for wine bottles.

• Plastic bottles were � rst used commercially in 1947 but did not become widespread in the industry until polyethylene (PET) was invented in the 1960s. Manufacturers � ocked to plastic not only because it weighs less than glass thereby saving on shipping costs, but also because it doesn’t shatter during shipping.

• In 1976, the average American consumed 1.5 gallons (2.6 l) of bottled water each year. By 2008, the number had grown to about 30 gallons (113 l) of bottled water per person in the U.S. It takes about 2 quarts (1.9 l) of water to produce a single plastic bottle.

• In the U.S., 24% of bottled water sold is either Pepsi’s Aqua� na or Coke’s Dasani. Both brands are bottled, puri� ed municipal tap water.

LEAD CRYSTAL• Lead crystal is valued because of its brilliancy

and clarity. However, when beverages are stored in lead crystal bottles, glasses, or decanters, the lead passes into the liquid and then into the bloodstream of the consumer. Many people assume that if you store your beverage in the leaded container only for

the duration of the dinner, no harm will be done. Studies have shown that some room-temperature liquids can increase from 1 microgram of lead per liter to 166 micrograms per liter in just 15 minutes. (� e EPA guidelines for water are 50 micrograms per liter, with recent recommendations for lowering it to 20.) Wine will double its lead content in only an hour.

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18,000 extra Rs went out and people started popping up all over wanting their money. � e bottler backed out of the contest.

• In 1945, First Lady Bess Truman was asked to christen a new plane, but someone forgot to score the champagne bottle so it would shatter. When she hit the plane with the bottle, it dented the plane but the bottle remained intact. Again and again she swung the bottle, but succeeded only in enlarging the dent. Finally a workman grabbed the bottle, held it against the plane, and smashed it with his wrench, drenching Bess.

• � e Heublein food company once came out with an upscale TV dinner that came with a small bottle of wine which was supposed to be poured on the food before cooking. People drank the wine instead of cooking with it and the product � opped.

• Minor league umpire Steamboat Johnson once noted, “I have rendered about one million decisions since I began umpiring. Something like four thousand bottles have been thrown at me in my day but only about 20 ever hit me. � at does not speak very well for the accuracy of the fans’ throwing.”

ANCIENT BOTTLES• In 1954, 18 liquor bottles were salvaged from

a ship that had gone down 250 years earlier o� the English coast. � e bottles were good as new, but the corks had deteriorated and there was no longer any liquor in the bottles.

OOPS…• In 1982 a Coca-Cola bottler in Tennessee began

a new contest, whereby consumers had to spell out “home run” with letters in the bottle tops to win $100,000. � e odds were supposed to be a million to one because very few bottle caps with the letter R were supposed to be produced. However, due to an error at the bottling plant,


Amazing Animals

GROUNDHOGS• Groundhogs are among the few animals that are

true hibernators. � ey fatten up during spring, summer, and fall, then retreat to their dens for the coldest months of the year. During hibernation, their normal body temperature falls to just above freezing. � e heart rate drops from 80 beats per minute to � ve. Breathing slows from 16 breaths per minute to about two. During the 150 days or so that they go without eating, a groundhog will lose about 25% of its body weight.

• In early February the male groundhogs will emerge from their dens in order to � nd a mate. After mating, the two will go their separate ways, because groundhogs are not social animals aside from the mother raising the young.

• During summer months, a groundhog may eat more than a pound of vegetation per day, which would be equivalent to a typical man eating a 15-pound (7 kg) steak. Because so much of the groundhog’s diet involves crunching vegetation, its teeth grow at the rate of nearly an inch every four months. When aligned correctly, the teeth grind each other down. If the alignment is o� , they keep on growing like tusks, making it di� cult for the woodchuck to eat. In extreme cases, the upper incisors can even pierce the lower jaw.

• Groundhogs are the largest members of the squirrel family which includes chipmunks, prairie dogs, and marmots. � ere are 14 separate species of groundhogs, which are also called woodchucks.

• Groundhogs like to live at the margins of the forest, so they are one of the few species that bene� ted from the spread of civilization in the U.S. As settlers cleared more � elds and cut more forests, their population grew.

• � ough they are noted for the prodigious underground tunnels they build, they are also adept at swimming and climbing trees, which helps them escape predators. A groundhog can move as much as 700 pounds (317 kg) of dirt to create its burrow which usually has several entrances. Groundhog burrows are bene� cial because they o� er shelter to other ground-dwelling animals while also keeping the earth from becoming compacted.

• Although they are also called woodchucks, they do not usually eat wood, so we’ll never know how much wood a woodchuck can chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

• It was a habit for Europeans to look for signs of spring, and animals such as badgers, bears, and hedgehogs emerging from dens was always noted. When Germans immigrated to Pennsylvania, they continued the practice, watching for the emergence of groundhogs to indicate the coming of spring.

• In 1887, a newspaper editor in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, heard about a group of local hunters who went out every February in search of groundhogs. � ey held a picnic every year at Gobbler’s Knob. � e editor wrote about the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, and Groundhog’s Day was born.

• � e folklore holds that if a groundhog sees his shadow, six more weeks of winter will follow. � ere is a kernel of truth here, for if it’s a clear cloudless day, it’s bound to be cold because there is no insulating cloud cover. However, most of the groundhog’s territory covers colder regions that usually have six more weeks of winter regardless of whether there’s a shadow or not. And statisticians estimate that the groundhog’s predictions are correct only 39% of the time. Flipping a coin would be more accurate.

MESSAGES IN BOTTLES• Around 300 B.C. Greek philosopher � eophrastus

used � oating bottles to prove that the Mediterranean receives most of its water from the Atlantic.

• Albert, Prince of Monaco, asked ship captains to drop bottles into the sea at certain spots to research currents. Over 1,700 bottles were dropped between 1885 and 1888, and 227 of them were returned in the next 10 years.

• An ocean survey ship called the Pioneer dropped 22,000 bottles into the ocean in 1964, each containing information on where and when it was tossed overboard. Forms enclosed explained the purpose of the bottle and asked the � nder— in English, French, Spanish, and Japanese— to return the form and information about where it was found to the project’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. � e survey reported an average return rate of 8% and most were found between nine months and two years after they were released.

• Miami’s sewage treatment facilities consisted of a plant that piped the raw sewage into the ocean about 2 miles from shore. O� cials felt that winds and tides would disperse the mess harmlessly. Environmental activists thought di� erently and set out to prove it. � ey took a boat to the end of the pipe, and released 700 watertight bottles. Inside each bottle was a note and a mail-in card. � e note said, “� is card was placed in a drift bottle released directly over the end of the Miami


Beach sewer outfall which dumps raw, untreated sewage into the ocean. � is drift bottle was found by (name, address). It was found (location). � is drift bottle was moved by the same wind and currents that move the raw sewage. � is is where Miami’s sewage goes.” 12 days later, 70 of the cards had been received from points along the coast of Florida.

MESSAGES IN BOTTLES (cont”d)• In 1875, the crew of the Canadian ship Lennie

staged a mutiny, murdering all o� cers on board except for a steward who was needed to navigate the ship to Spain. He headed the ship to France, telling them it was Spain, while periodically dropping bottles overboard that told the whole story. � e French authorities were waiting when they arrived in France.

• Daisy Alexander inherited the Singer sewing machine fortune. She couldn’t decide what to do with her money when she died, so she wrote out her will, sealed it in a bottle, and tossed it in the River � ames in London. � e will gave 50% of her fortune to whoever found the bottle. She died 2 years later. Ten years after her death, an unemployed restaurant worker named Jack Wurm found the bottle on the beach at San Francisco. He received over $6 million. Daisy’s lawyer got the other half of the fortune.

• A British sailor in the 1800s tossed a marriage proposal overboard into waters o� of Britain as his ship got underway for India. On the return journey he was walking along the beach in Egypt when he found and retrieved his own bottled proposal of marriage.

• Swedish sailor Åke Viking dropped a bottle overboard in 1958, asking any pretty girl who found it to write to him. Two years later, a Sicilian � sherman found it and gave it to his daughter, Paolina, as a joke. She wrote to Åke. � ey were married in Sicily.

• � e longest it has ever taken a message in a bottle to be discovered is 108 years. In 1906, the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom dropped more than 1,000 bottles into the North Sea with instructions to return any bottles found to the institute with information about where they had been picked up. In 2015 a tourist found one of the bottles and dutifully returned it to the address listed.one of the bottles and dutifully returned it to the

Valentine’s Sundae Desert Bars18 (2 1/2-inch) chocolate graham crackers4 cups sugar- and fat-free vanilla ice cream1 (4-serving) package sugar-free chocolate cook-and-serve pudding mix2/3 cup nonfat dry milk powder1 cup water1 teaspoon vanilla extract2 teaspoons reduced-calorie margarine1/2 cup miniature marshmallows3 tablespoons chopped pecans1/2 cup reduced-calorie whipped topping4 maraschino cherries, halved

1. Arrange 9 graham crackers in a 9-by-9-inch cake pan. In a large bowl, gently stir ice cream until slightly softened. Coarsely crush remain-ing 9 graham crackers and stir into softened ice cream. Spread mixture gently over graham crackers in cake pan. Cover and freeze while preparing topping.

2. In a medium saucepan, combine dry pud-ding mix, dry milk powder and water. Cook over medium heat until mixture thickens and starts to boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla extract, margarine and marshmallows. Drizzle hot mixture evenly over ice cream mixture. Sprinkle pecans evenly over top. Re-cover and continue to freeze for 2 hours or until � rm.

3. Let set at room temperature for 10 minutes. Cut into 8 servings. To serve, top each with 1 tablespoon whipped topping and a maraschino cherry half.

* Each serving equals: 191 calories, 3g fat, 7g protein, 34g carb., 199mg sodium, 1g � ber; Diabetic Ex-

changes: 2 Starch/Carb., 1/2 Fat.

(c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.


* “Save old greeting cards for children or grand-children to use for arts and crafts material. � ey can cut out the pictures on the fronts, and reuse them to make drawings or other projects. � ey can even make a whole new card!” -- T.I. in Mis-sissippi

* Are you already thinking about spring? Put this on your wish list: glow-in-the-dark paint. Use it to paint stones or other garden borders, and come evening you’ll have a lovely, artistic yard!

* “If you have small toys that you no longer need, consider donating those in good shape to local day-care facilities. Call � rst to see if the center takes donations and what speci� cally it might need. � e kids at my daughter’s day care really love the play kitchen, and can’t seem to keep those teacups and saucers in the play area. When we got rid of our daughter’s play kitchen, we do-nated all the food and accessories to the kids at the school, and they LOVED it!” -- A.A. in Florida

* When you need to hang something like, say, a frame, use this trick to get your nails in just the right place. Use a dab of toothpaste on the back of the frame where the nails should be. Press against the wall. � e toothpaste will leave behind a superb guide, which can be wiped right o� the wall after the nail is in. Hang and admire!

* Like to play games on your smartphone? Put it on airplane mode for less annoying ads! Just make sure it’s a game you can play “o� ine.”(c) 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.

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tidbits vernon 257 feb 5 2016 bottles online

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