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COPYRIGHT 2005 Financial Times Ltd.
(From Off Licence News)
They have a reputation as pick-me-ups, but beer, wine and spirits can lift more than your mood they have uses round the home, too
They say that laughter is the best medicine but, for centuries, alcohol was considered the cure for a variety of illnesses in ways that could not be claimed today for fear of litigation.
In the days before the L'Oreal generation decided whether they were worth it and ladettes drank each other under the table, women's prime contact with beer involved pouring it over their hair for a lovely shine. It could be argued that today we have a less 'wholesome relationship with alcohol in a sea of expensive household cleaners and medicines we are far less aware of the versatility of drinks, from beer to vodka.
The link between alcoholic drinks and medicine can be tracked to the dissolution of monasteries by King Henry VIII in the 1530s, which forced monastic apothecaries to seek work elsewhere as distillers of medicines and alcohol.
Several references to drinking whisky date from around 1638, when the Company of Distillers was incorporated in London. The line of separation between drink and medicine...
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