Monthly Archives: September 2022

Bottoms Up: The Scotty B (Drink)!

Given my fondness for — and advocacy of — weed, I’m pretty sure I put the narc in narcissist. I have an inventions list, a set of hostage demands, and even a third website I really should retire but youjustneverknow.

But never a drink. Til now!

I stumbled on it entirely by accident, so I’m pretty sure the whole world knows it. And I have seen a couple memes on Google. But never an actual piece on the legitimate question: Is hot Gatorade good — and better at fighting flu than hot tea?

Listening internet? We’re breaking ground here.

Hot Gatorade is good if you like your hot tea reeeaaallly sweet. Which I do; I Sweet N’ Low my sugar. Sam says it’s okay: He says there’s only now, so season life to every taste. And he said that just half a second ago.

See, he was rearranging abdominal furniture when we needed something hot for the gut and throat. I was out of regular tea, and was going to saccharine up the decaf. And then, like Feynman peering into the quantum infinite, I epiphanied:

Nuke Gatorade.

Only 60 seconds or so. That’s the beauty of a Scotty B: You can nuke, let cool, reheat and not worry about leaves settling at the bottom of the cup, like for those tea-sipping troglodytes.

More importantly, there could be some science to the Scotty B. Think about it. If you’re home nursing, say, strep and sipping caffeinated tea, aren’t you dehydrating yourself at the moment you should be doing the opposite? And even decaffeinated tea doesn’t replace electrolytes.

To be fair, you have to mentally brace for hot sweetness that isn’t chocolate, perhaps already a dealbreaker. And some hot power drinks are as sweet as syrup on meth. But given how much we sweeten flavorless hot liquid, heating sweet liquid doesn’t seem that far a stretch.

I’m pretty sure Gatorade already knows of this, because they’ve come up with a flavor straight from the Sedona spa: Lime Cucumber. And it doesn’t suck.

If you like to Irish up your coffee, vodka doesn’t change the flavor of a Scotty B. much, while still maintaining the neon colors that let you think you’re having morning juice on Tatooine.

Voila! The Scotty B.

I do not recommend this drink cold.

One for the Road

Factslap: Humans invented alcohol before we invented the wheel


The wheel is credited as one of humankind’s most important inventions: It allowed people to travel farther on land than ever before, irrigate crops, and spin fibers, among other key benefits. Today, we often consider the wheel to be the ultimate civilization game-changer, but it turns out, creating the multipurpose apparatus wasn’t really on humanity’s immediate to-do list. Our ancient ancestors worked on other ideas first: boats, musical instruments, glue — and alcohol. The oldest evidence of booze comes from China, where archaeologists have unearthed 9,000-year-old pottery coated with beer residue; in contrast, early wheels didn’t appear until around 3500 BCE (about three millennia later), in what is now Iraq. But even when humans began using wheels, they had a different application — rudimentary versions were commonly used as potter’s wheels, a necessity for mass-producing vessels that could store batches of brew (among other things). 

Some researchers believe our long-standing relationship with alcohol began only 10 million years ago thanks to a genetic mutation that allowed our bipedal ancestors to consume overly ripe fruit. Over time, alcohol consumption transitioned from snacktime byproduct to a purposefully crafted, fermented beverage, and different cultures began to create their own brews independently. After China’s beer and wine appeared around 7000 BCE, early vintners in the Caucasus Mountainsfollowed 1,000 years later. Sumerian brewers crafted beer around 3000 BCE, while Indigenous communities in the Americas, such as the Aztecs and Incas, later made their own drinks from agave and corn. It may seem surprising that ancient humans were so fermentation-focused, but early alcohols played a major role in prehistoric communities: Booze was often the center of religious and social celebrations, and could serve as a go-to cure for illness and pain. In some cases, it even acted as a nutritious, probiotic boost during times of food scarcity. With their many uses, both lifesaving and life-enhancing, brewed beverages have withstood the test of time