Wednesday, June 29, 2011

I have two questions:

First, as to the references to disaffected minority youths attacking people and robbing stores, why are they referred to as 'flashmobs' instead of 'Thieving little thug bastards'?

Second, just what is it they use as the seal material on whiskey bottles? That stuff you peel off?
Clarification: not the wax on stuff like Maker's Mark, the foil you have to peel off.

8 comments:

Bob said...

There's an article in Wikipedia that gives more history. I'm familiar with the term from reading Larry Niven's stories. Notice he imagined flash mobs back in 1973.

The current flash mob phenomenon by blacks is going to cause a huge stink in the next couple of years, I'm thinking, and has the potential to lead to widespread racial hatred, if not an outright race war.

The MSM won't be able to keep hiding this phenomenon forever, not with Drudge and other alternative media sources shining a light on it.

Tom Stedham said...

I'm pretty sure the crumbly stuff on whiskey bottles is wax, or a wax-mixture of some sort.

I vaguely recall a news story, years back, of a long-time employee at Maker's Mark. He was the bottle dipper. Good job, I guess.

Tom

Firehand said...

Not the wax, there's a lot of whiskey that uses some kind of thick foil.

And yeah, that'd be an interesting job to have on your resume. Though I don't know how long I could keep doing that every day

djmoore said...

I found one reference claiming it is aluminum foil, but it looks and feels more like lead to me. I think it's too heavy for aluminum.

Niven's "flash mobs" were driven by teleportation portals. Turned out that all you really need is a way to organize it, not a way to get people to it.

Sigivald said...

I suspect it to be tin; the characteristics are appropriate.

Lead, they'd never be allowed to use on the mouth of a bottle these days.

(The internet suggests that wine bottles use tin these days, and I bet liquor bottles use the same, so I'd double-down on my guess above.

And I'm with djmoore - it's definitely not aluminum. It looks wrong and behaves wrong to be aluminum.)

Tom Stedham said...

Still no luck with the seal, but here's a look at the Maker's Mark procedure... An actual American worker seals each bottle by hand, with a wax/plastic blend:

http://cocktails.about.com/od/history/ig/Maker-s-Mark-Distillery/And-a-Little-Wax-Seal-.htm

DJMoore said...

Sigivald: Tin! Of course! (Or an alloy thereof.) Could well be. I don't think I've ever handled a sample of true tin foil, particularly of that thickness, but sounds reasonable.

I see Wiki calls it malleable and ductile, resistant to corrosion, and of low toxicity, making it suitable for food packaging.

You're right about lead in the modern day, of course, but perhaps it was used traditionally.

Firehand said...

Wondered if might be tin; it would seem the most likely. I know lead's been used in the past, but not for quite a while.

Nice info on the dipping, thanks!