·
It
was the excepted practice in Babylon some 4,000 years ago that for a month after
the wedding of his daughter, the brides father would supply his son-in-law with
all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar
was lunar based, this period was called the “honey month” or what we know
today as the “Honeymoon”.
·
Before
thermometers were invented, brewers of beer would dip their thumb or finger into
the brew to find the right temperature for adding yeast. If the brew was to
cold, the yeast would not ferment. If the brew was to hot, the yeast would die.
This action of putting the thumb in the beer is were we get the phrase “Rule
of Thumb”.
·
In
the old English taverns, ale was ordered in Pints and Quarts. When customers
became unruly, the Landlord would shout at them to mind their Pints and Quarts
and to settle down. This is the origin of “mind your P’s and Q’s”.
·
The
Vikings after consuming lots of ale, or aul as they called it, would head
fearlessly into battle, often without armour or even shirts. The word
“Berserk” in Norse means “Bare Shirt”, this eventually took on the
meaning of their wild battles.
·
In
1740, Admiral Vernon of the British Fleet decided to water down the Navy’s
Rum. This did not go down to well with the sailors, and they christened Vernon
“A Old Grog”, after the stiff wool grogram coats he wore. The term Grog soon
began to mean the watered down Rum. When you got drunk on this Grog, you were
known as “Groggy”. A word still in use today.
·
In
the middle ages, “Nunchion” was the word for liquid lunch. It was a
combination of the words “Noon Scheken”, which means noon drinking. Having a
large peace of bread was called lunch. So if you ate bread with your nuncheon,
you had what we still call today “Luncheon”.
·
Many
years ago, some pub frequenters would have a whistle baked into the rim of their
ceramic mugs. When they wanted more drink, they would blow their whistles for
attention. The phrase “Wet Your Whistle” was inspired by this practice.
Beer was the reason that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The Mayflower’s log records that the crew did not want to waste beer looking for a better site. The log goes on to state that the passengers “Were hassled ashore and made to drink water that the seamen might have the more beer”.