Nicki Minaj backs Moscato brand (by Lucy Shaw)

American rapper Nicki Minaj.

 

Outspoken American rapper Nicki Minaj is the latest to profit from the ‘Moscato madness’ boom in the US, having become part owner of Moscato brand Myx Fusions.

The songwriter and TV star, known for her outlandish outfits, has been made the face of the brand, which specialises in fruit-infused single serve Moscato.

“I’m so excited to team with Myx. I have no doubt that it will be number one.

“It’s a great tasting product that people will love. It’s not even a hard sell. Myx Fusions gives us an opportunity to revolutionise the wine industry,” she said.

Priced at $4 bottle, Myx Fusions is currently available in New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and there are plans to roll out the Moscato across the US.
The Myx Fusions range
“The collaboration between Nicki Minaj and Myx Fusions is a game changer,” said Mona Scott-Young, chief marketing officer for the brand.

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Study: Another Reason for Daily Wine (by James Hamblin)

Drinking wine may well prevent kidney stone problems.

 

Coffee, tea, beer, and wine seem to make kidney stones less likely.
PROBLEM:

Kidney stones cause the sort of pain that people rate as highly as childbirth. They also cost the U.S. about $2 billion per year, caring for them and in terms of the missed work they cause. Ounces of prevention being worth ounces of stone-free urine, what are the best things to drink to keep kidney stones from forming?

METHODOLOGY:

Researchers led by Dr. Pietro Manuel Ferraro at Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome and Dr. Gary Curhan at Harvard reviewed data from 194,095 patients who had never before had kidney stones, for an average of eight years. The subjects all reported what they drank (on an annual or biennial basis), and how many stones they got.

The research did not involve ultrasounds or CT scans on all of those people to look for stones — CT scans on 194,095 people would cause at least a few to get cancer — so they only counted people who experienced symptoms from stones, like pain or blood in their urine. That means there were others who had secret stones that no one ever knew about.
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The Best Wines for Your Waistline (by shape.com)

Watch that waistline…

 

You’re a pro at checking labels at the grocery store, but when you hit the liquor store for a bottle of wine, nutrition facts are nowhere to be found. Luckily, armed with some basic knowledge, you can easily figure out which wines are the best buys for your bikini body as well as your palette. We spoke with wine expert Madeline Puckette, cofounder of Wine Folly, who shared her best tips for finding great-tasting wines that won’t derail your diet.

1. Check the ABV. While there are no actual nutrition labels on bottles of wine, there is one indicator you can use to approximate calories: the Alcohol by Volume (ABV) percentage. ABVs can range from 9 percent for low-alcohol wines up to 17 percent for some dry wines. “Aim for an ABV that’s between 9 to 12 percent, which equals 110 to 140 calories per six-ounce pour,” Puckette says. The amount of alcohol in wine has more influence on calorie count than carbs, since alcohol has seven calories per gram, while carbs (i.e. sugars) have four. So a lower-alcohol wine has fewer calories than higher-alcohol wines, independent of the amount of sugar. (Check out Wine Folly’s helpful infographic, below.)

2. Buy European. “A smart tip to keep in mind is to look for European wines from regions like Italy, France, and Germany,” Puckette says. These countries tend to have stricter laws and regulations on alcohol content in wines than America, so European wines tend to be lower in alcohol and, hence, calories. “Also try to avoid wines grown in warmer regions like Chile or Australia, where higher sugar content in grapes converts to higher ABV in wines,” she adds.

3. Stick with white. In general, white wines tend to be lower in alcohol and calories than reds. “While light whites have around 140 calories or less per six-ounce glass, a light red has between 135 to 165 calories, while a higher-alcohol red like pinot noir or syrah can have up to 200 in a glass,” Puckette says. Light white varieties such as Riesling, pinot grigio, and vinho verde have fewer calories than whites with higher ABVs like moscato, Chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and viognier.

 

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Ten good reasons for the women to drink red wine (by Paul Main)

10 Reasons why women should drink wine!

 

The red wine is useful if you don’t drink too much. There are some benefits about drinking some red wine for you, women! Have a look:

1) Red wine making your skin younger, i.e. a kind of anti-aging.

 

2) Red wine helping you to sleep better.

 

3) Red wine helping your stomach.

 

4) Red wine increasing your appetite. If you need to eat more food, it’s a good decision.

 

5) Red wine making you stronger. This is a kind of tonic effect.

 

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Women, drinking, and wine-as-reward culture (by Kara Baskin)

 

My reward …

 

“It’s a way to be bad while being good.”

Sacha Scoblic, 38, author of “Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety,” summarizes the double-edged allure of drinking. It’s a legal mode of escapism, and the camaraderie over talking about drinking is as intoxicating as the buzz itself — especially among mothers.

“I need a drink!” is shorthand for “I’ve worked hard, and I’ve earned it.” And what mom wouldn’t cop to being busy?

The whine-wine culture is celebrated in books like “Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay” and websites like Moms Who Need Wine, a Boston-based group with more than a half-million members (“If you’re not sure you could survive motherhood without a stockpile of your favorite Red, then you’ve come to the right place!”) There’s a wine label called MommyJuice (“Because you deserve it”), not to be confused with Mommy’s Time Out (“Need a break? Take a Mommy’s Time Out!”)
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Porn stars & their favourite drinks (by Andy Young)

Jesse Jane do Tequila & beer!

From Ron Jeremy’s love of rum to Jenna Jameson’s obsession with Irish whiskey, we reveal porn stars’ favourite drinks.
When the Ron de Jeremy rum launched in 2011, one reviewer said: “I honestly don’t think that there has been a rum – or any product for that matter – that I have had more people ask me for my opinion on in hushed tones than Ron de Jeremy.”

And that is, perhaps, no great shock. The marketers of the rum have adopted a rather tongue-in-cheek campaign, with the saying: “Long and smooth, it’s perfect naked” and it’s no surprise to see Jeremy surrounded by beautiful girls as he talks about the rum. There is even a Ron de Jeremy calendar available.

But Jeremy is not the only adult star to have crossed into the adult world of drinks, Jenna Jameson, once considered the “Queen of porn”, has also released a selection of wines after buying a vineyard in California.

In many of the interviews that these adult movie stars give they are often asked what is their favourite drink, possibly because many people think that you must be drunk to take part in such a film. Although one XXX-rated star, Tera Patrick, dismissed this when asked recently what is the biggest misconception about porn stars, she replied: “That we’re easy to hit on and that everyone’s on drugs – that’s insane. And that we’re all dumb. Some people in porn are so bright. Ron Jeremy, for example, is a special education schoolteacher. I’m a trained nurse.”

Well, that’s OK then. So with misconceptions firmly squashed, let’s take a look at the favourite drinks of some of these adult movie stars.

 

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Wine for Beer Drinkers (by winefolly.com)

 

For every bottle of wine drunk in the United States at least 20 bottles of beer are consumed. That means twenty-to-one your friends are drinking beer. So how do you get your friends to drink (and enjoy) more wine?
 
Below are six major styles of beer with a complimenting style of wine. Discover wine from a new perspective: wine for beer drinkers.

•Lager and Light Beer
•Pale Ale
•India Pale Ale
•Wheat Ale
•Belgium Ale
•Porters and Dark Ales
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Wine could become ‘only for the elite’ if Government bans drinks offers in supermarkets (by dailymail.co.uk)

 

 

Chief executive of Majestic Wine says drinkers could turn to beer if multi-buy offers are scrapped

 

Wine could become too expensive for anyone but the wealthy thanks to Government restrictions and taxes, says one major retailer.
A potential ban on multi-buy offers in supermarkets and the recent 10p rise in wine duty could be responsible for drinkers turning to beer instead, according to Stephen Lewis, the chief executive of Majestic Wine.
This could reverse the ‘revolution’ of people enjoying a glass of wine with a meal, he said.
 
A potential ban on multi-buy offers by the Government could lead people to abandon wine for cheaper drinks, says one retailer
‘Having established this culture of food and wine, you know, which is a sea change from where we were 30 years ago, why would we want to stop that?’ Mr Lewis, whose chain has nearly 200 stores in the UK. told the Daily Telegraph.
He said that banning drinks offers in supermarkets would not solve the problem of anti-social behaviour.
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People eat more unhealthy foods on days they drink (by Reuters)

 

 

Americans tend to eat more calories and fat on the days they also have alcoholic drinks, a new study suggests.

“Food choices changed on the days that people drank… and changed in an unhealthier direction for both men and women,” said Rosalind Breslow, a nutritional epidemiologist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the lead author of the study.

She said the new information gives people an opportunity to be more aware of what they’re eating on the days they imbibe.

In a previous study, Breslow found people who drink more tend to have poorer diets in general, compared to those who drink less. For the current research, she and her colleagues looked at volunteers’ diets on both the days they drank and the days they abstained.

The data came from a large U.S. health and lifestyle survey conducted in 2003 through 2008.

More than 1,800 people answered a diet questionnaire on two days within a 10-day span – one day when they drank and another when they did not. When people did imbibe, they had an average of two to three alcoholic beverages at a time, most commonly beer and wine.

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Top 10 gay favourite drinks (by Andy Young)

Global market research company Mintel recently estimated the spending power of the gay population to be between £6bn and £8bn per annum in the UK and US$464bn in the US.

 

With these kind of numbers in mind it is perhaps no surprise that some drinks companies have sought out the “pink pound”.

In the book Principles of Marketing, authors Frances Brassington and Stephen Pettit wrote: “Gay consumers are perceived to have a higher than average income, and almost 60% of gay men are either single or not cohabiting. Those who are cohabiting are likely to be in dual income households.” The book adds: “The lack of dependents and responsibilities gives gay consumers more opportunities for lifestyle spending with a strong focus on leisure and socialising.”

According to gay website Queerty.com, “if there are two things gays like to be at the forefront of it’s trends and liquor.” So, with this attitude and the knowledge that the Gay Times magazine claims that 80% of its readership comes from the ABC1 socioeconomic groups, compared with 43% of the general population, targeting the gay population should make sense for many drinks brands.

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