Ah, really? We have a durian-eating party every once in a while, and we accompany it with beer and/or wine (depends on who's hosting). I don't recall anyone having such problems. Maybe we did and passed out, I dunno.
Apart from the claim that it gives one gas, durian contains a lot of sulfur (hence the odor), which inhibits the aldehyde dehdrogenase, the enzyme responsible for the neutralization of acetaldehyde, the toxic metabolic product of alcohol. Given that Asian populations already suffer a mutation to the genes encoding alcohol dehydrogenase that lowers their tolerance to alcohol, the inhibition of aldehyde dehydrogenase will lead to the nastiest hangover you've ever experienced, starting about ten minutes into drinking and continuing all throughout the next day...
ThunderBird said: Given that Asian populations already suffer a mutation to the genes encoding alcohol dehydrogenase that lowers their tolerance to alcohol, the inhibition of aldehyde dehydrogenase will lead to the nastiest hangover you've ever experienced, starting about ten minutes into drinking and continuing all throughout the next day...
Makes me wonder why you see so much about Japanese people (ZUN-sama included) drinking so much...
NWSiaCB said: Makes me wonder why you see so much about Japanese people (ZUN-sama included) drinking so much...
Sake is generally less than 20% alcohol by volume (undiluted sake is 18-20%, but is often lowered to 15% by dilution). This is low enough even for them to drink quite an amount before poisoning kicks in. The catch is, alcohol accumulates in the body, so drunkenness starts quite suddenly, and lasts longer than expected. That said, I'm not really in a position to comment on the strength of sake. I've only drank it once, and given that I'm European, with a fully functioning copy of ADH, I could liken it to drinking water. In fact, I'm fairly confident that any Westerner would have a good shot at winning a drinking game against Yuugi.
Poor Sanae-san. Looks like she'll have to wait before she can join in on the after party. At least she got the chance to try out some durian. Kogasa-san might want to give Sanae-san a little extra breathing room for a little bit, though, just in case the durian she ate goes to work. Don't be sad, Sanae-san, you'll get to go out later!
YuriTenshi said: Don't underestimate the stupidity of a western fratboy. I'm sure Yuugi would be the one going "uh, you should probably stop, you know?"
ThunderBird said: Sake is generally less than 20% alcohol by volume (undiluted sake is 18-20%, but is often lowered to 15% by dilution). This is low enough even for them to drink quite an amount before poisoning kicks in. The catch is, alcohol accumulates in the body, so drunkenness starts quite suddenly, and lasts longer than expected. That said, I'm not really in a position to comment on the strength of sake. I've only drank it once, and given that I'm European, with a fully functioning copy of ADH, I could liken it to drinking water. In fact, I'm fairly confident that any Westerner would have a good shot at winning a drinking game against Yuugi.
20% alcohol by volume is actually pretty strong, you know? The most commonly imbibed alcoholic beverage, beer, is generally only 5%.
Even at your estimate for a diluted 15%, that still makes it three times as strong a liquor as beer, which actually runs completely contradictory to your point that it's not very strong.
Furthermore, most Japanese nowadays, including ZUN himself, are prone to drink their own brands of beer.
Are you sure what you were drinking wasn't far more diluted than you thought?
ThunderBird said: Sake is generally less than 20% alcohol by volume (undiluted sake is 18-20%, but is often lowered to 15% by dilution). This is low enough even for them to drink quite an amount before poisoning kicks in. The catch is, alcohol accumulates in the body, so drunkenness starts quite suddenly, and lasts longer than expected. That said, I'm not really in a position to comment on the strength of sake. I've only drank it once, and given that I'm European, with a fully functioning copy of ADH, I could liken it to drinking water. In fact, I'm fairly confident that any Westerner would have a good shot at winning a drinking game against Yuugi.
Oddly, the mutation is present mostly in either east asian and jewish populations. People often try to use that as further proof of some kind of Japonese-Israeli connection from the Yayoi period.
Well yeah beer has ~5%. But the amount of beer you normaly drink is quite a bit more than that of sake. And btw, it is quite some time ago when I last saw someone get drunk by beer at partys, you really would need a lot for that.
NWSiaCB said: 20% alcohol by volume is actually pretty strong, you know? The most commonly imbibed alcoholic beverage, beer, is generally only 5%.
Even at your estimate for a diluted 15%, that still makes it three times as strong a liquor as beer, which actually runs completely contradictory to your point that it's not very strong.
NWSiaCB said: 20% alcohol by volume is actually pretty strong, you know? The most commonly imbibed alcoholic beverage, beer, is generally only 5%.
Even at your estimate for a diluted 15%, that still makes it three times as strong a liquor as beer, which actually runs completely contradictory to your point that it's not very strong.
Furthermore, most Japanese nowadays, including ZUN himself, are prone to drink their own brands of beer.
Are you sure what you were drinking wasn't far more diluted than you thought?
I never inspected the label, but I'm fairly certain it had none of the "sting" harder liquors do, and it was straight out of the bottle. I got the "~15% diluted" figure off of Wikipedia, so you're free to argue.
As for 20% being considered "pretty strong", that's a matter of taste and conditioning, I guess. I'm Hungarian, our "national booze", pálinka /ˈpaːliŋkɒ/, is defined in law as 50+%, in practice usually around 51-53%. I'll admit that I sometimes have a bit of difficulty with something of that level, drinking ~30-40% Curaçao like it's flavored syrup poses little problem. I'd rather say beer is what's fairly light, since it's made to be drank "in bulk", and so cannot be very strong. Except for some special brews, like "Tactical Nuclear Penguin" (I'll leave the alcohol content to your imagination, or Google. You won't be disappointed...)
dimanoch said: Oddly, the mutation is present mostly in either east asian and jewish populations. People often try to use that as further proof of some kind of Japonese-Israeli connection from the Yayoi period.
That does make me wonder a bit about my drinking habits (Filipino here). I can down a bottle of tequila, and get quite drunk, but I can manage not being too affected by it in some regards.
I thought about getting some salmiak to eat if there was any left over, but it was apparently all distributed, so there was none left. Tsk, what a shame!
Reader-added tags include "Can't make it a snack (´・ω・`)", "Say so beforehand" and "That was a close one, Sanae-san".
The tags also note that the poll's rather one-sided:
Let's ask Letty-san! • Ambiance • Let me have a fun drink! • Let me eat salmiak! • Lower the temperature a bit! • Marry me!
YuriTenshi said: Don't underestimate the stupidity of a western fratboy. I'm sure Yuugi would be the one going "uh, you should probably stop, you know?"
I would say Yuugi probably has a better chance of SURVIVING that contest
I wouldn't be foolish enough to even think of trying to defeat an oni at a drinking contest, even though I can hold my liquor fairly well.
For the poll, I'd ask Letty for a drink. As much fun as it would be to marry her, I think a lot of fanboys (I'm sure she has them) would cry in despair.
Okay guys, as a Filipino on this group, I'd say durian is one of the harmless fruits I've eaten. Albeit the stink, I totally don't mind, it's nice, soft, and sweet.
Though, yeah, word of caution, this does mean that you can't drink something that would make you bloated the entire night. Including soda, and alcohol.
So it would seem that, along with the many experts concerning various military craft and equipment, multi-linguals, mathematicians, and experts in other fields, Danbooru is also home to a number of biochemists...
aoi-hoshi said: So it would seem that, along with the many experts concerning various military craft and equipment, multi-linguals, mathematicians, and experts in other fields, Danbooru is also home to a number of biochemists...
All walks of life, I guess...
I can only speak for myself, but I have an interest in (and thorough understanding of) military hardware and tactics, I'm a student of international relations, which includes quite a bit of law, and my flatmates are a student of psychology and two medical students, whose books I regularly peruse for a bit of entertainment. The rest of my knowledge is just hobby-level stuff, and following the news.
ThunderBird said: Sake is generally less than 20% alcohol by volume (undiluted sake is 18-20%, but is often lowered to 15% by dilution). This is low enough even for them to drink quite an amount before poisoning kicks in. The catch is, alcohol accumulates in the body, so drunkenness starts quite suddenly, and lasts longer than expected. That said, I'm not really in a position to comment on the strength of sake. I've only drank it once, and given that I'm European, with a fully functioning copy of ADH, I could liken it to drinking water. In fact, I'm fairly confident that any Westerner would have a good shot at winning a drinking game against Yuugi.
speaking on the topic of Sake, last new year's a friend of mine was drinking some sake, and i couldn't help but notice at the time that it smelled like embalming fluid...
\Atai/ said: speaking on the topic of Sake, last new year's a friend of mine was drinking some sake, and i couldn't help but notice at the time that it smelled like embalming fluid...
This raises an interesting question: How do you know what embalming fluid smells like??
Sake can spoil, regardless of its alcohol content: some lactic acid bacterium strains can become resistant to alcohol and start to decompose aromatic compounds. It can also degrade under heat and light, as a bitter compound (dicetopiperazine) can form, and there's always oxidization after opening. So any number of factors may contribute to smelling like ... whatever embalming fluid smells like.
\Atai/ said: i had a friend who was going to school to become a mortition. she liked to collect odd things (if you catch my drift.)
This just goes to show what I said earlier: all walks of life are represented here, one way or another...
My flatmates have a genuine human skull in a box, as well as a few phalanges (the bones of the fingers and toes). As they say, things go "missing" from the morgues, for educational reasons.
Even though durian tastes amazing it had some dangerous effects explained above. In my place, there are food stalls that sells durian along with a unique drink. We called it 'tuak', it's some kind of fermented drink made with some pretty interesting ingredients, one of them are maggots. If you think Durian stinks then don't even consider getting anywhere near this stuff, it's on a whole different level. Consuming both of them at the same time can lead you to death(no gas or bloated belly). It's no wonder in my place it is considered a dare. And people(mostly old guys) here LOVE to do that.
On the topic of Alcohol and the whole 'east asian' thing, this is said here in the west yet, oddly, Korea (both North and South) brews the heaviest drinkable Alcohol drink on earth. Never drunk the stuff (I'm not suicidal), but I heard someone say that it was 93% pure alcohol content (but I can't confirm or deny this, so take it with some salt), and apparently all it was was hyper purified Rice Wine using a 3000 year old recipe that some monk group have been brewing for nearly that long... That may well have been enbalming fluid. I've heard you can get 300 year old alcohol over there, and that really puts everyone under the table. If they're dumb enough to drink it straight, that is. Their favorite reactions so far seem tocome from Germans, no offence, that seem to think that they can drink anything. I also have to agree with \Atai/, having also smelt embalming fluid more than once. I'm guessing they had some of the stronger stuff, that Sake smells exactly like Enbalming fulid and was historically used as it in some parts of Japan. Yet they still drink this stuff. Yet I want to raise another point entirely: In old Japan (and Korea and China), Booze had other ingredients added to 'influince ther taste', some of them were powerful Narcotics. That is part of what gave sake it's knock down power, especially the ones joked of as 'Oni Killer'. If Oni brewed Sake based on that recipe, then it wouldn't be Alcohol tolerance that mattered when drinking against them... it'd be Drug resistance. Which Europeaners have historically shown to be weak to, just look at the US (a mix of European Countires + Africa and Mexico)... no Drug Resistance. Sorry for the spill here, rambling is a flaw of mine.
Coincidentally, 93% is the strongest alcohol can get via distillation. Although at that point, all you have is alcohol, so that's not really a beverage any more, but more of a ... solvent. Adding sulfuric acid can dehydrate it further to 97%, but as alcohol is hygroscopic as well, it will absorb moisture from the atmosphere to water itself back down to 93%.
To my knowledge the single strongest drink is the Austrian Stroh rum, at 80%. Adding stuff to alcohol is nothing new, though. The originally Bohemian drink Absinthe contains thujone, a psychoactive compound. Although it's only present in trace quantities, it has been implicated in the alleged hallucinations of absinthe drinkers. Macerating herbs with alcohol has been a long-running tradition of humans, regardless of the narcotic qualities of some plants.
Actually the limit of distillation is 95.6% ABV. Or in other words, industrial alcohol minus the stuff they put in to keep people from drinking it. To use Everclear as a example, it's mainly used to increase the alcohol content of mixed drinks, or to make liqueurs at home.
the_redstar_swl said: Actually the limit of distillation is 95.6% ABV. Or in other words, industrial alcohol minus the stuff they put in to keep people from drinking it. To use Everclear as a example, it's mainly used to increase the alcohol content of mixed drinks, or to make liqueurs at home.
Everclear sounds more like a glass cleaner than vodka. At least Stroh has flavor, as much as you can taste through the tears and pain of drinking 80% alcohol... I'm quite content with enhancing fruit distillates with spices and additional fruit. Dried apricots in apricot brandy, or coriander in grapes makes for some amazing tastes, as does orange distillate by itself.
grand_zero said: Yet I want to raise another point entirely: In old Japan (and Korea and China), Booze had other ingredients added to 'influince ther taste', some of them were powerful Narcotics. That is part of what gave sake it's knock down power, especially the ones joked of as 'Oni Killer'. If Oni brewed Sake based on that recipe, then it wouldn't be Alcohol tolerance that mattered when drinking against them... it'd be Drug resistance. Which Europeaners have historically shown to be weak to, just look at the US (a mix of European Countires + Africa and Mexico)... no Drug Resistance.
How would a drug resistance work? Less sensitive to hallucinogenic compounds? Endorphins?
Very Interesting. From what people who've drunk it told me, it (the Korean mankiller) tasted like a mix between air, sweet water, and overly watered down urine... It was apparently mostly a test of manliness when drinking the... liquid. I do know that it is said that if anyone drinks over 3oz of it undilluted and then attempts to opperate major muscular control (like standing up), they'll pass out.
Alignn said: How would a drug resistance work? Less sensitive to hallucinogenic compounds? Endorphins?
Something like that. Of course, the term 'drug resistance' is merely a blanket term for a whole slew of individual resistances that would be required. For instance, did you know that one can get high off of Paint Thinner, Pipe Cleaner, and an assortment of other common Construction supplies? Not me, I'm near immune to the stuff (I came from a long line of Construction Contractors before this recession hit). Not quite sure what all the ingredients of those are, but it still makes my point. I even knew a man who was immune to CS gas, it was just annoying to him as it was hard to see through (like a smoke grenade). That type of thing. Yet, I'm allergic to Nicotine, so I can't call myself 'drug resistant'... I kinda stuck part of my foot in my mouth there.
Alignn said: How would a drug resistance work? Less sensitive to hallucinogenic compounds? Endorphins?
Something like that, changes in brain chemistry or the absorption pathways could render chemicals less effective. This is how built up tolerances work, and this makes mithridatism (the practice of gradually immunizing oneself against poisons by ingesting increasing but non-lethal doses) effective.
For example, Rasputin's alcoholism led him to develop hyperacidity, which in turn allegedly prevented his poisoning with potassium (although this may be attributed to mithridatism). This could be a case where the victim 'developed' immunity to a poison.
grand_zero said: Something like that. Of course, the term 'drug resistance' is merely a blanket term for a whole slew of individual resistances that would be required. For instance, did you know that one can get high off of Paint Thinner, Pipe Cleaner, and an assortment of other common Construction supplies? Not me, I'm near immune to the stuff (I came from a long line of Construction Contractors before this recession hit). Not quite sure what all the ingredients of those are, but it still makes my point. I even knew a man who was immune to CS gas, it was just annoying to him as it was hard to see through (like a smoke grenade). That type of thing. Yet, I'm allergic to Nicotine, so I can't call myself 'drug resistant'... I kinda stuck part of my foot in my mouth there.
Immune to CS? I find that a bit hard to believe. Are you sure it was CS-gas, and not pepper spray? Or possibly epic self-control, as irritants are particularly hard to develop a resistance against.
ThunderBird said: Immune to CS? I find that a bit hard to believe. Are you sure it was CS-gas, and not pepper spray? Or possibly epic self-control, as irritants are particularly hard to develop a resistance against.
If it was epic levels of self-control, that I have no way of knowing, all I know for certain is that his record did in fact list him as 'Immune to CS Gas and Nerve Gas'... Apparently he was known for going in the Gas House (MOPP Gear training) without a mask just for to freak everyone else out. Take out of that what you will, he was one of those guys that ran with the Spec.Ops and even (supposidly) Delta Force, so nobody said anything as long as he didn't do anything too crazy. One has the chance to see some weird things in life knowing who I do...
grand_zero said: If it was epic levels of self-control, that I have no way of knowing, all I know for certain is that his record did in fact list him as 'Immune to CS Gas and Nerve Gas'... Apparently he was known for going in the Gas House (MOPP Gear training) without a mask just for to freak everyone else out. Take out of that what you will, he was one of those guys that ran with the Spec.Ops and even (supposidly) Delta Force, so nobody said anything as long as he didn't do anything too crazy. One has the chance to see some weird things in life knowing who I do...
Apparently freaky stuff does happen, from time to time. I can take diffused pepper spray quite well, and luckily hasn't had the chance to try CS, nor an nerve agents. If your friend is in the military, they are likely indoctrinated into the effects of irritants, so they naturally come to endure their effects for some time. Which is all well and good in a warzone, actually...
ThunderBird said: Apparently freaky stuff does happen, from time to time. I can take diffused pepper spray quite well, and luckily hasn't had the chance to try CS, nor an nerve agents. If your friend is in the military, they are likely indoctrinated into the effects of irritants, so they naturally come to endure their effects for some time. Which is all well and good in a warzone, actually...
Yeah, he was military, I forgot to mention that. From what I heard, the greatest thing on his record was breaking out of a N.Korean Prison Camp with 5 other guys. He isn't considered a POW due to the fact him getting captured in the first place was a Mission Objective, but still... North Korea loves their Nerve Agents. And this was in the 70s/80s when nothing was supposed to be happening... He was one crazy son of a gun... and still is, what considering his injuries and all. Oh well. Never got paid for any of that either.
Well, they don't call durian the King of Fruits for no reason. As people above me mentioned, you do NOT mix durian and alcoholic drinks for the obvious reasons, but that don't stop some people I know over here from having Tiger beer after eating durian.
I have to ask, though: how did the Japanese come across durian?
Apparently, they will ferment in your stomach and create a lot of gas.This is an emergency message for those who have eaten durian from the host just recently!MurmurHow was the durian?It was great.♡Please join us at the drinking party that's coming up after th-...Please do not drink any alcohol within one hour!Everyone Should Be Careful, Too!Tip Tap Tap TapAh!What's wrong?In the worst case, you might die!!Brrrah....