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Budem zdorovy! Soviet Era Anti-Alcohol Posters

According to Christina Gathmann, a post-doctoral fellow with Stanford University's Center for Health Policy, this anti-alcohol campaign started in 1985 as a top-down decision from Mikhail Gorbachev, ostensibly because he was always drinking water while his fellow government officials had a preference for other beverages. 

Gorbachev felt the need to do something about the drinking culture, especially due to the high mortality rates from alcoholism in Russia.  In addition to reducing alcohol production and imposing limits on distribution, the government created this fantastic propaganda, designed with simple bold shapes and colors to get the message out.  During this era, Constructivism design (a geometric abstract art movement in Russia) was heavily used in commercial art.  Constructivism was greatly influenced by the Bauhaus movement in Germany.

Unfortunately for Mikhail, the campaign wouldn't last long.  You see, his government received more than 10 percent of its revenues from taxes on alcohol sales.  So, even though the anti-alcohol policy might well have been effective in reducing alcoholism and increasing life expectancy, due to the sharp decline in tax revenues, it was not itself sustainable.

Hover over images for translation

 

  

   

 

 

All images are from the personal collection of Moscow-based designer, Yuri Matrosovich

 

 

The Perfect Daiquiri

It’s given us Fidel Castro and The Buena Vista Social Club, but there’s more to Cuba than communist revolutionaries and Latin grooves. It’s also the birthplace of not one, but two classic rum cocktails: the mojito and the daiquiri. While the minty mojito is now ubiquitous on cocktail lists across the land, the daiquiri is more of a connoisseur classic – one for the true rum aficionado.

Give any rum-loving bartender a new bottle to play with and the first thing it's subjected to is the daiquiri test.  Because the daiquiri doesn't lie:  Three ingredients, each of them essential, combine to form a perfect synergy.  If a rum can't hold up its end, there's little point in giving it further play.  If it comes through, you've got something that you can work with. 

"The daiquiri is one of the best exponents for rum," says Ian Burrell from Caribbean restaurant Cotton, which specializes in rum cocktails."‘It’s a simple cocktail using ingredients that grasp the flavor of the rum and let it shine."

Here's how:

Put 1/2 oz fresh squeezed lime juice into a cocktail shaker

Stir in 1/2 tsp superfine sugar, or a little more if you have a sweet tooth

Add 2 oz. rum

Fill the shaker with ice, cover, shake hard

strain into a chilled cocktail glass

Evaluate.

Trouble Sleeping? Eat Cherries.

Forget eight uninterrupted hours.  I'm lucky if I get five or six a night.  Judging by all of the social network posting between the hours of 11pm and 3am, I know I'm not the only one lying there trying to get my brain to turn off.  Of course, there are a number of available drugs to help you sleep, some you get with a prescription, and some without (wink wink, nudge nudge).  What a doctor will prescribe usually contains melatonin, an antioxidant that helps induce sleep.  Now, if prescription meds aren't your candy, a new study says "eat some cherries".    gigiddy 

A team from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, and VA Center of Canandaigua have learned that tart cherry juice might be the answer to your insomnia.

The researchers looked at the sleep habits of 15 older adults who drank eight ounces of tart cherry juice in the morning and evening for two weeks. Then they drank a comparable matched drink with no tart cherry juice for another two-week period. The results?

Check out their findings: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michael-j-breus/can-cherries-relieve-inso_b_676901.html

Also, Michigan cherries are now in season!  Ask the Cherry Queen where to get the best: http://visit.cherryfestival.org/blog/post/cherry-queen-blog