Don’t forget that Everclear is also good for stunts like this. Do we as a society really want to give that up?
Every time someone dies from drinking too much Everclear, the Everclear company should have to buy them a new life.
I should have made this point in the OP:
As much as I like to drink, I don’t like Everclear nor any of the concoctions made with it. This is not a self serving opposition.
What I hate is the nanny state. Helmet laws, seat belt laws, bans on lawn darts and water Wiggles. All crap to protect us from ourselves. In, an allegedly, free country, it should not be any level of governments business to protect adults from themselves.
But what I HATE, HATE, HATE:mad: even more than the nanny state are the brain dead lemmings that like the nanny state. The idiots who want to be protected from themselves and demand everyone else be too.
It isn’t about protecting you from yourself, it’s about protecting the rest of us from *you *and your irresponsible decisionmaking. Cripple yourself for life, or put yourself into a coma from brain damage, from refusing to use seatbelts or a helmet, and who *really *pays? How many people are really affected when you pull dumb shit you don’t quite get away with?
Exactly! And with that logic you can get the government involved in anything. Which is why we really should require both helmet AND seatbelt use, along with fire-protective clothing and reinforced roll-bars.
Unless of course the government gets a sizable chunk of tax revenue from “the dumb shit” like alcohol and tobacco. If the government bans everclear it won’t be to save people, it will be to make more tax revenue off the lower proof bottles. Everclear is the least profitable from the government’s view point.
The point is to mix it so you don’t taste it. I used to use Everclear to make hunch punch for parties and there is an art to mixing it with several Kool Aid flavors in order to make it taste more or less while Kool Aid while maintaining an acceptable (ie., high) alcohol content.
It tastes almost exactly like vodka. Back in my younger, stupider days I took a few shots of it to impress the rubes and I actually found it easier to drink* than Bacardi 151 or even neat gin.
*I still made a face and gagged a bit, but not for quite as long.
Yep, we can’t buy it in PA. Which is why, in my circle of friends, when traveling it is considered proper etiquette to inquire if anyone needs anything brought back.
Just checked our bar, there is 1/3rd bottle left from our last trip.
…Everclear, Red Bull and Gatorade? Christ, I want to puke just reading that.
I say we just ban mix! 
What the hell is Hawaiian punch? Sounds like it should be banned too.
No point in banning them, they haven’t gotten any airplay for years.
Ok, after a thread full of witty responses, this one has to win. Thank you for making me laugh out loud in my office cubical.
I would like to add that they need to make sure the new life includes an area where their flowers can bloom.
yeah sure ban it.why not? oh hell let’s just ban everything that morons can potentially hurt themselves with such as shoelaces and bubblegum…
shall we go ahead and make a list of non-idiot proof items that should be banned immediately???
I think we could make a list of idiot-proof items (it would be a lot shorter), if it is even possible. Can you even think of one idiot-proof item that couldn’t ever possibly hurt someone? Let’s just cut our losses and ban everything!
good point. BAN everything!
Ban name!
Marley tried that and look how well that worked.
Ban Ki-moon!
My homeowner’s insurance won’t go up or down if everclear is banned. It does not affect me economically if some idiot (legal adult or no) dies in his own swimming pool after being stupid.
That’s not true for seat belts and other safety features in automobiles. My auto insurance would skyrocket if more people died on the roadways, even if no other people become involved. Corpses are simply more expensive to deal with than survivors. Seatbelts save me money. Ditto airbags. Would mandating helmets save me any money? Maybe. Maybe not. I haven’t seen any economic analysis that says they do. Hence, no need to mandate their use.
There’s certainly a fine line between protecting us from ourselves and protecting some of us from 2nd party idiots, but the line exists. I know you want to build a story about the evils of government interference, but you’re trying to do that by denying there’s a difference at all.
Actually, it doesn’t taste like much at all. That’s part of the attraction–you can pour it in fruit punch and it still tastes pretty much like fruit punch, but it gets you drunk fast and hard.