Drinkhacker Reads – 10.28.2013 – Australia Dumps Six Million Bottles of Wine

Drinkhacker Reads – 10.28.2013 – Australia Dumps Six Million Bottles of Wine

popcornIn this seasons’s edition of “Let’s Go To Court Over Aesthetics”: in the blue corner, we have whiskey titan Jack Daniel’s. And in the red corner, young Nashville upstarts Popcorn Sutton, whose square bottled packaging has started a Hatfield-McCoy styled brawl in the foothills of Tennessee. The square bottles are claimed to cause confusion even for the most sober of consumers, and therefore Daniel’s has requested the product be removed from shelves and replaced with different packaging. We’ll be ringside to see how this one ends up. [Times Dispatch] (photo courtesy of Ann Richardson, Ann Richardson Photography)

Elsewhere in the world’s courts, Treasury Wine Estates is currently enjoying a class action lawsuit after a massive oversupply situation forced roughly six million bottles of wine to be poured down the drain. The continent faced a similar situation in the 1990s, when six million unpurchased Silverchair CDs had to be buried in the outback, and in the late ’80s when the Bee Gees attempted their first of many comebacks. [France 24]

Unsatisfied with brewing the world’s strongest beer at 65% ABV, Scottish brewery Brewmeister has topped itself with its new Snake Venom, coming in at 67.5% abv. Unlike “that other beer” Armageddon, Snake Venom isn’t supposed to mask the taste of the high alcohol content, which uses smoked peat malt and yeasts from beer and Champagne. It’ll be available for about $81 and available for sale at The Real Ale Company. [Brewmeister]

This month’s issue of The Atlantic features a pretty swell article on Buffalo Trace’s experimentation and scientific approach to bourbon making. We’ve been championing their commitment to doing weird and interesting stuff for years now, and it’s been well documented elsewhere. However, it’s nice to see major media outlets finally catching on to what Harlan and company are doing over in Frankfort. [The Atlantic]

Screen shot 2013-10-28 at 12.18.49 PMJust in time for the holiday season, Master of Malt has unveiled the 2013 edition of its Advent calendar. However, this year there’s a twist: there’s a regular edition clocking in at $242 and a premium edition for $404 bucks. So you’ll know whether you’ve been good or extra good this year depending on the quality of your calendar. [Master of Malt]

Rob Theakston is a contributing editor to Drinkhacker.

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