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Wisdom: The meaning of 'alcohol proof'
Wed, 14 Jan 2009

Originally I typed 'Widsom', which is somehow ideal. The real reason for this post is to enlighten other new fathers, as I am slightly less new at it by now. During some of the long long nights, you realize early that rum-and-coke is suboptimal as it is full of caffeine (and joyous rum!) As such, the next best thing would be rye-and-ginger, but finding the right rye is tough.

As a Canadian, I stand by Crown Royale. Or fall by it.

Anyway, my dad passed along some vital information long ago; people refer to an alcoholic beverage by its "proof", which generally means twice-the-alcoholic-percentage -- a 20% alcohol is 40 proof. But what does proof mean? What is the measure? Why does it exist at all, when you can say percentage?

What I've been told (which could be wool over my eyes for all I know) is that in the rum pirate days they of course had no easy way to discern the percentage of something.. but you could easily test how flammable it was. Certainly the moonshines and homemade beverages that've been thrust upon me burn brightly.. but this is not a colour or intensity test. The 'proof' simply refers to whether it wil burn at all, or whethor it will burn gunpowder. If something is too much water, you can't blow stuff up.

So naval folks, and pirates, and whosits, could easily tell if something was proof or not. I don't know how they sorted it out to be twice the percentage or the like, but what can I say .. as fireside tales go, this one is not bad.

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