Drinking

WHAT WOULD you say if I told you that you could profoundly cut your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer? Significantly decrease your risk for Alzheimer's disease, too? And, better yet, that you could do all this without spending a single dime? Impossible, right? Wrong. All that and more may be possible simply by following the sage advice of Dr. Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and co-author of The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting . The "Fast Diet" is all the rage in Britain and could take flight here as well.

The much-ballyhooed battle against the bottle in the Soviet Union is in ignominious retreat. For the first time in more than three years, draft beer is once again being sold on the streets of Moscow. Hordes of Muscovites queued yesterday in Indian-summer weather with glass jugs and two-gallon plastic containers at stands that formerly sold kvass, a nonalcoholic Russian fermented drink made from bread. As is usual before any holiday, the lines to buy alcohol were long on the eve of Soviet Constitution Day. Revelers were toasting a report in one newspaper that the state had decided to sharply increase the production of wine, beer, brandy and champagne.

THE BUDWEISER Phillies. That should be their new name. After all, they promote it until you're drunk, puke, fight and murder. The alcoholic consumption in and out of the ballparks is ridiculous. Because of the tragedy recently there ought to be policy changes from the Phillies and the Eagles. There should be no-drinking sections, family days where there is no alcohol sold, and move last call up to the fifth inning. I can't take my 11-year-old son to a game without exposing him to a drunk, F-bomb cursing fan guzzling two beers at a time.

IN A STORY that will surprise no one but it's nice to see confirmed nonetheless, TMZ.com has video footage of underage Hollywood celebs getting into clubs - and drinking - while everybody not only turns a blind eye but helps facilitate the partying. Shown on the TMZ.com site is teen fave singer Jesse McCartney, 18, beer in hand, chatting up a woman at the ultra-trendy Hollywood club Mood. The problem is that in California, no one under 21 is permitted to enter a club like Mood, let alone be downing brewskis or vodka and Red Bull or Cognac and cough medicine or whatever the kids are drinking these days.

A Philadelphia police officer was charged Tuesday with drinking and driving while on duty, allegations that resulted in his being fired last month. William Haviland, 42, had been on the force for seven years and was assigned to the 26th District, which includes Fishtown and parts of Northern Liberties and Port Richmond. Police said Haviland had been working a night shift Sunday, Nov. 7, when he went to a bar in Northeast Philadelphia, in the 7100 block of Torresdale Avenue, in full uniform.

NOBODY KNOWS who wrote the first drinking song, but it's a good bet that Zane Lamprey won't write the last. The booze hound/TV host is touring the country this fall in "Sing the Booze," a musical-comedy performance that showcases his decidedly dirty, inebriated songs. ("Beer, I Love You" imagines actual copulation with a cold glass of beer. "Baby, You're Beautiful When I'm Drunk" is a testament to the power of beer goggles.) Now, it's easy to write off Lamprey's show, stumbling into Philly tonight, as simple, dopey frat-boy humor.

State Rep. John Galloway this afternoon admitted he had been drinking and driving early Tuesday morning and apologized for making "a very serious mistake. " The Bucks County Democrat was arrested in Harrisburg early Tuesday morning on charges of driving under the influence after refusing to take a Breathalyzer test, police said. Galloway, 50, was stopped about 3:15 a.m. on Second Street near Washington Street, not far from his apartment after a police officer spotted Galloway's car run a stop sign, said Capt.

The hit-and-run driver who critically injured a 9-year-old Bucks County boy leaving a Phillies game in San Francisco last week had been drinking before the wreck, his passenger said. Police arrested Andrew Vargas, 21, of Hayward, Calif., Thursday, within hours of the collision that hospitalized Ryan White of Yardley. Preliminary tests indicated that man had a blood-alcohol level that exceeded the 0.08 legal definition of drunken driving, He was charged with felony hit and run, driving under the influence and driving with an open container.

The hit-and-run driver who critically injured a 9-year-old Bucks County boy leaving a Phillies game in San Francisco last week had been drinking before the accident, his passenger said. Police arrested Andrew Vargas, 21, of Hayward, Calif., Thursday, within hours of the crash that hospitalized Ryan White of Yardley. Preliminary tests indicated Vargas' blood-alcohol level exceeded the 0.08 legal definition of drunken driving. He was charged with felony hit-and-run, driving under the influence, and driving with an open container.

The halls of Upper Perkiomen High School seemed conspicuously lacking yesterday in gossip about drunken celebrations at Friday night's prom, students and teachers said. One week after an all-too-real mock accident and funeral brought an auditorium of students and teachers to tears, the teenagers said the blunt message of the "Every 30 Minutes" program was heard: Drinking and driving hurts an entire community - parents, teachers, emergency personnel and friends. Junior Michelle McCauley, 17, said that unlike two years ago, when seniors talked about drinking at the prom she attended as a freshman, she has not heard students this year talking about drinking at the prom or the traditional post-prom parties.

Every so often, Pennsylvania gets a steep Chairman's Selection discount on a California red that might not be compelling enough to merit a list price approaching $48 - but is totally worth jumping on for $19.99. The 2010 Sonnette from Bell Wine Cellars in Yountville, marked down more than 50 percent, is jump-worthy, for sure. Debuted with a Saturday tasting in the PLCB booth at this weekend's Rittenhouse Row Festival, and on sale in stores Monday, Sonnette (French for "little bell")

To raise money for the desperate Philadelphia School District, Mayor Nutter proposed Wednesday to tax cigarettes at $2 a pack and raise the city's liquor-by-the-drink tax from 10 percent to 15 percent. Alongside School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. and others at City Hall, Nutter also pledged to improve city tax collections. The mayor estimated that his plan would raise an additional $95 million for schools in 2013-14 and $135 million in the second year. Nutter stressed that the money would benefit not only students enrolled in district schools but those who attend the 84 taxpayer-funded charter schools in the city.

Pinot grigio has gotten a bad name - and for good reason. As the variety has achieved mass popularity, most common bottles are insipidly thin, and taste as close to water as wine can get. But if you look for bottles from Alto Adige, the mountainous northeastern Italian region bordering Austria, you'll taste pinot grigios with backbone and personality worth seeking out. This fresh 2012 bottle from Tiefenbrunner in the Tyrolean Alps is so crisp and alive...

A JAZZ GUITAR leans against an armchair in a corner of Adam Schmidt's Old City office. "I don't play it nearly as much as I used to, which is actually why I brought it to the office," says Schmidt, 31. "At home, I don't find enough time to play. So I try to take a break and play every once in a while. " It's ironic, Schmidt admits: He has too much work at home, so he brings his personal life to the office. More often than not, the two worlds are one and the same for the young entrepreneur.

At a long lunch at Bridgid's 10 years ago, a bottle of Brasserie Dupont's organic Foret saison was uncorked at my table. And as we sipped glass after glass of this peppery, citrusy, earthy, irrepressibly frothy brew, the Belgian beer light blinked on in my brain and never went off. (So much for column-writing that day!) A decade and thousands of other ales later, I reconnected last weekend with a tall bottle of Foret at the South Philadelphia Tap Room. With warm breezes blowing in the front windows and Foret's bucolic label of unicorns and butterflies before me, there could be no better sipping scenario for spring.

HARRISBURG - Liquor privatization is bad. That seemed to be the sum total of testimony Tuesday at the first of three hearings in the state Senate on Gov. Corbett's push to get Pennsylvania out of the liquor business. The hearing in the Law and Justice Committee focused on the impact privatization would have on public health and law enforcement. Witnesses from the union for state troopers, who enforce liquor laws, and from drug and alcohol prevention and treatment groups said privatizing would lead to more liquor outlets, more drinking, and more alcohol-related crime and violence.

Bordeaux almost always refers to a red blend. But the dry whites of Bordeaux are underappreciated, especially those from Graves. So I was intrigued by this elegant California homage to the style from Napa's Chimney Rock. This Stag's Leap district star, known for pricey cabs, blends sauvignon blanc with sauvignon gris, a pink-skinned grape that adds an unusual texture to the wine. Most popular sauvignons these days are almost garishly bright. But this one, while still aromatic with lemon, apple and tropical notes, is softened and enriched by the gris, which adds opulent weight to the wine as well as a complex, savory finish.

It's a simple, critical, and sobering question at the heart of the debate over privatizing state liquor stores: Will Pennsylvanians drink more booze if sales are wrested from government control? Advocates say liquor privatization would mean more convenience, better selection, and lower prices. But public-health experts say reducing the government's role in alcohol sales comes with a potentially harmful downside - people buy more of the alcoholic beverage that is privatized. In 2011, the Community Preventive Services Task Force, an independent group appointed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommended against privatization "based on strong evidence that privatization results in increased per-capita alcohol consumption.

I'll bet that flying means to you roughly what it does to me: battling seat pockets that eat knee space. Emptying your inner life into plastic trays. Far above the clouds, another, better world exists: It's a paradise of infinite legroom and no one around to pat you down preflight. In fact, as a passenger in a private jet, you call the shots, even when it comes to buckling seatbelts. Celebrities and Romney-class politicians know this well. And so do I - since a business-owning pal let me fly aboard a JetSuite Embraer Phenom 100 from Providence, R.I., to New York.

Sly Fox helped pioneer the craft-beer can revolution. Now, it's ripping the top off the genre altogether - literally. Gently yank the tab on its new "360 Lid" and nearly the entire end of the can is lifted off for wide-open sipping. Smell the hops! Take a big, refreshing gulp. No more small-hole, aroma-deprived glugging. Developed by Northeast Philly's Crown Holdings (and first seen at the World Cup), the 360 made its North American debut this spring with Pikeland Pils cans exclusively available at Citizens Bank Park.