Drinking

For pop culture aficionados, it's become a cherished ritual that must be observed around the biggest broadcast events: the TV drinking game. For Sunday's Hollywood edition, Times-sanctified enablers have gone beyond boozy suggestions and conjured up a list of prompts to maximize your  enjoyment of - while perhaps minimizing your sobriety during -- the 85th Academy Awards. FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2013 | Top nominees Some suggestions ... * Every time Seth MacFarlane makes a self-serving reference to one of his TV shows or movies: Take a shot of cheap tequila.

Some people climb mountains. Others explore uncharted wilderness. Beau Chevassus aimed to order the most expensive drink Starbucks could concoct. The Washington state man brought his own 52-ounce coffee mug to the coffee chain. There, he proceeded to order 48 shots of espresso, some protein powder, two bananas, a few caramel drizzle Frappuccino chips, some vanilla bean and a little soy. He called it the "Quadriginoctuple Frap. " Price tag: $47.30. This blew away the previous record holder, a $23.60 drink boasting one Java Chip Frappuccino in a Trenta cup, 16 shots of espresso, a shot of soy milk, caramel flavoring, banana puree, strawberry puree, vanilla beans, matcha powder, protein powder, and some caramel and mocha.

Jamie Kutch, winemaker in Northern California producing Pinot Noir at Kutch Wines in Sonoma. Kutch is a member of  " In Pursuit of Balance ," a group of wine producers focused on making balanced Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in California. "I have been consuming my fair share of Lapierre Morgon recently. Produced from the Gamay grape in Beaujolais, I found myself falling quickly in love with the delicate and feminine character of this wine which is planted on granitic gravel soils," says Pinot Noir specialist Kutch.

It is no wonder Florida Sen. Marco Rubio needed to grab a bottle of water in the middle of delivering the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address. The speech he was given to recite was like a hunk of stale, dry sourdough and it surely caught in his throat.  For 30 years, Republican aspirants to the presidency have been giving variations of the same speech. It sounded fresh and bold when Ronald Reagan first spoke the words as a candidate in 1980. At that point, the liberal era that began with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 had pretty much run out of gas. Democrats had grown too comfortable with their seemingly permanent lock on the House of Representatives, while their ideas about the creative use of government had devolved into a system of doling out federal dollars to clamoring interest groups.

A consumer group is taking aim at high-fructose corn syrup in soft drinks, arguing that it and other sweeteners are responsible for high obesity rates and health problems because Americans drink too much soda. The Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a petition Wednesday with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration urging the agency to require beverage makers to reduce the amount of high-fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners. "In the past 10 years or so, researchers have done a variety of experiments and studies that connect soft drinks to obesity" and other health problems, said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the consumer group.

A nutrition advocacy group joined with scientists and health agencies Wednesday to ask the federal government to decide just how much sugar is “safe” in sodas, raising the bar in its crusade to curb the “dangerously high” amounts Americans consume. Drinks are the single largest source of added sugar in the diet, and the request to the FDA is one way to fight back against the “ubiquitous marketing and heavy consumption” of sugar-sweetened beverages, the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Michael Jacobson, said at a news conference in Washington.

How would you like to start your mornings with an ice-cold Mountain Dew? Yow. But that's exactly what Pepsico, owner of the brand, wants you to do. The company today announced the debut of Mountain Dew Kickstart, a caffeinated juice drink it hopes will be a viable morning alternative to coffee or tea. It's no surprise that Mountain Dew -- already long-known for it caffeine content -- is attempting to get into the breakfast drink market, said...

The name of the town sings out from a plain green road sign on Route 248 in eastern Pennsylvania. Beersville. One mile ahead. No giant stone pretzels or statues shaped like suds-filled steins mark the entrance to the Northampton County town. Instead, the highway signs stop saying Beersville and start mentioning Klecknersville. Did you miss it? Turns out Beersville, about an hour and a half northwest of Philadelphia, is easy to miss. It has a Facebook page. On it, BeerNerd Beer, Stewart Kraft Brewer, and a guy who calls himself Rickie Bobbie who went to "Nasbar University," all claim to live in Beersville.

Moving is a least-favorite activity among Americans, according to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive. How onerous is it? One in 10 respondents said they would rather drink expired milk than move. Others said they would prefer to visit a dentist, sit in traffic, serve jury duty or do their taxes rather than move. Nearly a quarter said they would even give up vacation days for two years to avoid the experience. Performing karaoke in front of strangers, washing dishes at a busy restaurant and cleaning a neighbor's house were other options picked over packing up and relocating.