# Did any soldiers in history ever used to put coleslaw inside their boots? My god, I have finally asked this question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 17, 2024, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-soldiers-in-history-ever-used-to-put-coleslaw-inside-their-boots-my-god-i-have-finally-asked-this-question/1000423 "2024-04-17T19:05:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 55
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2024, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-soldiers-in-history-ever-used-to-put-coleslaw-inside-their-boots-my-god-i-have-finally-asked-this-question/1000423/55 "2024-04-21T07:16:30Z")
If coleslaw is not your style, how about vodka? From this thread: > [@Wifa skates: anybody familiar with them?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifa-skates-anybody-familiar-with-them/922920): > > Full disclosure: I was a figure skater; dance mostly, and I naturally had a partner. Wifa (pronounced “whiffa”) was (still is?) a high-end Austrian skate manufacturer that mostly did custom-made skates. I had the great good luck to find a secondhand pair of Wifas that fit me perfectly, back in 1976. I paid through the nose for them, plus I paid for blades (John Wilson Coronation Ace blades). My partner and I went on to win many club championships, and I always wore my Wifas. About thirty ye… In that thread, a poster remarked on how cheap vodka worked well to soften and shape the leather to the wearer’s foot: > [@Wifa skates: anybody familiar with them?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifa-skates-anybody-familiar-with-them/922920/7): > > Wifas (and other high-end figure skates) are leather. Thick leather. When you get the boots, they are rock hard. The owner has to “break” the leather in all the right places for comfort and stability when performing jumps and spins. Soaking a pair of socks in alcohol, lacing on the boots, and wearing them around the house breaks them in faster. The alcohol softens the glue and stiffeners and helps the leather conform to the shape of the foot. It also dries quickly. A lot of the skaters at our skating club on the base in Germany used duty-free vodka to do this because it was cheaper than rubbing alcohol at the time. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-soldiers-in-history-ever-used-to-put-coleslaw-inside-their-boots-my-god-i-have-finally-asked-this-question/1000423)._