We encourage responsible drinking
No-one likes a messy or angry drunk. Don't be that guy or gal.
Be a responsible drinker (and host) and keep it fun, not ugly, by:
- Having sufficient food available, ready to eat, and drink on a full stomach
- Have plenty of non-alcoholic options to drink - helps pace drinking to appropriate levels and reduce hangovers
- Have a sober driver, or reliable Uber or taxi service available
- Don't keep supplying people who are drunk with more alcohol - and stop if you get to the 'yeah what the hell, hand me the bottle' stage - it's sad, not heroic
- Have safe places to sleep available for those who have had too much to drive home - the pool airbed isn't one of them
- Don't do peer pressure - people have lots of reasons not to drink, respect them
- Say no if you don't want to drink, you don't need to say why
- Don't mix alcohol with other drugs, prescribed or otherwise, it's a good way to get spectacularly sick and ruin the fun
- Pace yourself - it's not a race. Stick to less than 2 standard drinks per hour, less if you are smaller than average
- Aim to feel relaxed, not totally uninhibited or out of control
- Alcohol is a mood magnifier - best used to maximise a good mood, not deal to a bad one
- Drink with people you like and trust. Be kind if one has had too much and take care of them, it might be you next time
- To reduce the dry horrors of hangovers, hydrate with non-alcoholic drinks throughout the night. Water drunk early and often during the night is your best friend the following day.
- And, it's OK to get help if you think you might have a drinking problem, it shows strength, not weakness, to do so.
Have fun.
Environmentally responsible brewing? Really?
We've heard of food miles, but what about drink miles? A lot went into getting that French wine to your table, the cost of transporting it added significantly to your carbon foot-print, or "food-print".
Now imagine if you could measure your drink miles in meters? We can with our home made mead - honey from the hives over the driveway, water from the roof, pinch of yeast, ta-da! Or how about our blackberry wine - picked from weeds growing on the property to prevent more sprouting, rain water from the roof, although the sugar does come from Queensland... ahem. Cider is even simpler with apples picked from the orchard and nothing else. How smug are we with our carbon 'food-print'? Pretty darn smug.
Are there local sources of fruit, yeast, water, sugar for you to brew from? Of course there will be. Get some fresh air and pick some, or support local growers and local markets. It's possible to even make wine with dandelions, and they grow everywhere. I can't vouch for whether it is any good.
Brew seasonal fruit. Apples in autumn, feijoas and kiwifruit in winter, plums in summer. Fruit picked at it's prime and preserved in one of the most delicious and long lasting ways. There is no reason to choose imported fruit from the other hemisphere out of season. Not only is seasonal fruit at its freshest, it is cheapest when in season too, as if you needed another justification to brew - 'I'm saving money and the planet, I'm so chuffed, I think I'll have a glass of something'.
And of course, don't drink and drive. You'll spill your drink. If you've had more than the legal limit, stay off the road, you'll also be reducing pollution (bring on the self-driving EV's!) and reducing the chance of harm to yourself and others directly and indirectly.
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