Is Drink Spiking an Urban Myth or big catch all excuse?

MadsL · 25-04-2013 08:53PM

Deleted User wrote: »

EDIT: 1.5-2 oz of spirits would make it 1/10 alcohol, not 1/2 as you said earlier, and I sincerely doubt that a naggin in 90 minutes is going to cause alcohol poisoning, drunkeness yes. A naggin of vodka (which is now what you're estimating) and 4 pints isn't going to cause acute alcohol poisoning in a healthy individual who drinks on a regular basis with no other problems.

Read what I said will ya. Deep six is slang for spiking. I have no idea how much alcohol was in my pints. It could have been 2oz of 80% slivovice, it could have been 6oz of vodka. No idea.

MadsL · 25-04-2013 08:54PM

wonderfulname wrote: »

Staropramen? That's less odd than had you said something diagio... Ooh that's an expensive experiment I now want to try...

Similar to Staro yes. I had just finished a hot and thirsty kitchen shift and necked the first one, probably whilst smoking.

desertcircus · 25-04-2013 08:55PM

People have an extraordinary faith in their sense of smell and taste, usually without basis. In certain circumstances it'd be near-impossible to tell whether a drink had been spiked with spirits, and if you really honestly think you could, then pour out two beers and get a friend to drop a shot in one when you're not looking. Then bring the two beers to a loud room filled with strangers who want to dance, or talk, or fight, and hand them to a person behind a bar. Tell the person behind the bar to serve you the spiked one at some stage during the evening without telling you. Then start drinking. See if you can correctly identify the spiked drink. Ideally, do this a couple of dozen times and see how often you correctly pick compared to chance.

Then look at your result and wonder if you'd have gotten the same if you'd never realised there was a test at all.

Newsflash: your taste buds are really not especially sensitive. Ditto for your olfactory senses. If someone wanted to spike your drink with spirits and not have you notice by taste, they probably could. I've seen beer-snob friends served Budweiser with Mi Wadi blind and swear it was high-quality Belgian fruit beer. I've seen smokers utterly unable to identify their cigarette tobacco. The wine industry has been derailed at least twice by exposing the fickleness of our tastebuds. Is it really so hard to believe that with a second or third pint of strong beer, when your tastebuds are saturated and you're slightly tipsy, that you'd fail to notice a heavy shot of something? Hell, I've drunk beers I couldn't tell a shot in stone cold sober.

25-04-2013 08:56PM

MadsL wrote: »

Another bartender who was working that shift.

How did he know?

Are you smoking weed?

I wish.

Now I am incorrect? Please do continue and show me how.

I think you likely are.

A famous doctor once said "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

I find it close to impossible to believe that a healthy individual who usually drinks without issue is going to be struck down by acute alcohol poisoning by a naggin of vodka and 4 pints.

There was a language barrier - but the jist was there was enough alcohol in my system to cause alcohol poisoning. How would any test distinguish vodka over say gin?

That's what I'm getting at, the reliability of your source.

Back to questioning my truthfulness.

Is English your first language? I mean honestly, you're not even replying to what I'm saying. If you were watching a quiz on TV and someone got a question wrong would you call them a liar?

Pug160 · 25-04-2013 09:00PM

desertcircus wrote: »

People have an extraordinary faith in their sense of smell and taste, usually without basis. In certain circumstances it'd be near-impossible to tell whether a drink had been spiked with spirits, and if you really honestly think you could, then pour out two beers and get a friend to drop a shot in one when you're not looking. Then bring the two beers to a loud room filled with strangers who want to dance, or talk, or fight, and hand them to a person behind a bar. Tell the person behind the bar to serve you the spiked one at some stage during the evening without telling you. Then start drinking. See if you can correctly identify the spiked drink. Ideally, do this a couple of dozen times and see how often you correctly pick compared to chance.

Then look at your result and wonder if you'd have gotten the same if you'd never realised there was a test at all.

Newsflash: your taste buds are really not especially sensitive. Ditto for your olfactory senses. If someone wanted to spike your drink with spirits and not have you notice by taste, they probably could. I've seen beer-snob friends served Budweiser with Mi Wadi blind and swear it was high-quality Belgian fruit beer. I've seen smokers utterly unable to identify their cigarette tobacco. The wine industry has been derailed at least twice by exposing the fickleness of our tastebuds. Is it really so hard to believe that with a second or third pint of strong beer, when your tastebuds are saturated and you're slightly tipsy, that you'd fail to notice a heavy shot of something? Hell, I've drunk beers I couldn't tell a shot in stone cold sober.

I find that hard to believe, with all due respect. There is a massive difference between Budweiser and decent Belgian beers. Budweiser is mass produced, chemical rubbish that tastes like battery acid compared to how a decent beer tastes.

ToddyDoody · 25-04-2013 09:03PM

Its an urban myth if you're ugly

wonderfulname · 25-04-2013 09:06PM

Pug160 wrote: »

I find that hard to believe, with all due respect. There is a massive difference between Budweiser and decent Belgian beers. Budweiser is mass produced, chemical rubbish that tastes like battery acid compared to how a decent beer tastes.

There's big differences in everything they've said, especially tobacco, but some people don't seem to notice them. I've had fruit beers that were easily comparable to bud and miwadi, so I'd well believe that, vile stuff.

MadsL · 25-04-2013 09:12PM

@Buttonftw

You have gotten to the point where you are now questioning that validity of someone who worked the same bar shift with the spiker and the medical doctor who examined me in hospital.

Off you go and believe what ever you want. I don't think you are interested in having a conversation about it, you just want to say "I don't believe it" often enough to make you sound like Victor Meldrew.

Maybe ask one of your friends to try it on you one night. Then come back to me.

MadsL · 25-04-2013 09:14PM

desertcircus wrote: »

Newsflash: your taste buds are really not especially sensitive. Ditto for your olfactory senses..

Most people cannot consistently tell white wine and red wine apart when blindfolded.

Carlos Orange · 25-04-2013 09:15PM

MadsL wrote: »

Who's fault was the spiking? You appear to be an apologist for the spiker by claiming I should have tasted it.

There is no obligation to believe something because it would be horrible if it was true.

Yellowblackbird · 25-04-2013 09:21PM

Seachmall wrote: »

I'm not addressing the OP. I'm addressing a specific point you made.

This is wrong. Rapists do.

You've failed completely to understand the point I was making in your enthuasiasm to be a smart arse prick.

Pug160 · 25-04-2013 09:21PM

wonderfulname wrote: »

There's big differences in everything they've said, especially tobacco, but some people don't seem to notice them. I've had fruit beers that were easily comparable to bud and miwadi, so I'd well believe that, vile stuff.

I'd bet a considerable amount of money on being able to tell the difference between a Budweiser and a decent Belgian or German beer. I'm not saying everything is the same - wine may be different - I'm not sure. But there are certain drinks I could definitely tell apart. Maybe some people just have terrible taste buds due to smoking and whatever else that's passing their lips.

MadsL · 25-04-2013 09:23PM

Pug160 wrote: »

I'd bet a considerable amount of money on being able to tell the difference between a Budweiser and a decent Belgian or German beer. I'm not saying everything is the same - wine may be different - I'm not sure. But there are certain drinks I could definitely tell apart. Maybe some people just have terrible taste buds due to smoking and whatever else that's passing their lips.

I bet you couldn't blindfold with the beer served at close to zero degrees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW1OTOxGvz4

Frank Black · 25-04-2013 09:32PM

MadsL wrote: »

A famous doctor once said "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Wasn't that Sherlock Holmes?

Seachmall · 25-04-2013 09:33PM

Yellowblackbird wrote: »

You've failed completely to understand the point I was making in your enthuasiasm to be a smart arse prick.

Your post is fairly clear-cut and specific about the point it's making.

It's also 100% wrong.

If you're going to get tetchy about being called out when you're wrong then maybe you should check to see if your points have any basis in reality.

25-04-2013 09:34PM

MadsL wrote: »

@Buttonftw

You have gotten to the point where you are now questioning that validity of someone who worked the same bar shift with the spiker and the medical doctor who examined me in hospital.

You're correct on both counts. Did that bar worker see the other guy adding the vodka/whatever it was? If so did he not question it (and if he did see it then you would have mentioned earlier that that's how you knew it was vodka, if not then how did he find out?

Off you go and believe what ever you want. I don't think you are interested in having a conversation about it, you just want to say "I don't believe it" often enough to make you sound like Victor Meldrew.

You're the one who won't address points and who is throwing a tantrum when someone questions what you're saying and accuses them of being a rape apologist/denier for it.
Why not just answer some straightforward queries in the same amount of time it takes for you to get jibes in?

MadsL · 25-04-2013 09:35PM

Frank Black wrote: »

Wasn't that Sherlock Holmes?

Arthur Conan Doyle was the doctor I was referring to, but well done.

desertcircus · 25-04-2013 09:38PM

Everyone's utterly convinced that the usual limitations of the human body simply don't apply to them. A few friends of mine had a beer tasting night - most brought unusual IPAs, Belgian ales, German weiss. At the end of the night, one of them brought out glasses of what he said was a light Belgian fruit beer; they all agreed it was excellent. It was at this point that he revealed the Bud and Mi Wadi. These were guys in their thirties who'd drunk hundreds of different beers and had strong opinions on them, and they failed to identify Bud with Mi Wadi.

Seriously: you are not nearly as good at telling tastes apart as you like to think you are. That's not a specific insult: that's a blanket statement to the entire population of the world. What we taste is massively influenced by external factors independent of the food or drink itself. I'm absolutely convinced that I adore the taste of Laphroaig scotch and can't abide Jack Daniel's, but if I'd had a couple of drinks and a meal, and a bartender accidentally gave me a Jack, I can't say for sure I'd notice. In a blind taste test? I'd nail the Laphroaig without even tasting it. But people don't get their drinks spiked with spirits in lab settings; it happens in busy pubs that smell of human sweat and spilled booze, that rattle with the sound of dozens of simultaneous conversations (and frequently overly loud music), and it's presumably done with a spirit that doesn't clash with the drink. Hell, I buy stuff in the pub when I honestly have no idea what it tastes like. People get cocktails that change in intensity the further down you go if the bartender's not a good mixer. There are so many confounding factors on top of an already limited sensory capacity that it's really not hard to imagine someone failing to notice. A shot of scotch in a rauchbier? An extra measure of vodka in a cosmopolitan? Come on, if you can't conceive of that passing notice then you're not trying.

wonderfulname · 25-04-2013 09:40PM

Pug160 wrote: »

I'd bet a considerable amount of money on being able to tell the difference between a Budweiser and a decent Belgian or German beer. I'm not saying everything is the same - wine may be different - I'm not sure. But there are certain drinks I could definitely tell apart. Maybe some people just have terrible taste buds due to smoking and whatever else that's passing their lips.

So could I, or at least I know what I like to drink and what I don't, but the only "fancy Belgian fruit beers" I've come across here taste like someone poured fruit syrup into a flat beer, I don't care how fancy, Belgian or expensive it is, it doesn't suprise me that someone fell for that, a lot of people don't drink for taste, they drink for image or alcohol content.

There is definitely a difference in wines, certian grapes you'd know a mile away and there are some particularly nasty value options lurking about but once you've hit something you enjoy drinking i don't think you'll get any further regardless of how much money you throw at it, I may be wrong but I've tried some expensive wines and with the exception of one they all just tasted like good table wine. The 'one' was middle eastern so that's probably just climate or grape.

MadsL · 25-04-2013 09:41PM

Deleted User wrote: »

You're correct on both counts. Did that bar worker see the other guy adding the vodka/whatever it was? If so did he not question it (and if he did see it then you would have mentioned earlier that that's how you knew it was vodka, if not then how did he find out?

I have no idea. Does it mean that my experience is therefore a fiction? No.

You're the one who won't address points

Perhaps if you could make a point i could address it. You haven't said anything other than I don't believe it yet.

and who is throwing a tantrum

:rolleyes:

when someone questions what you're saying and accuses them of being a rape apologist/denier for it.

I said you were victim-blaming, you still appear to be attacking the victim.

Why not just answer some straightforward queries in the same amount of time it takes for you to get jibes in?

Because any questions you have asked I have answered, the rest of your posts is you poo-pooing any idea that this could have happened.

Frank Black · 25-04-2013 09:43PM

MadsL wrote: »

Arthur Conan Doyle was the doctor I was referring to, but well done.

Oh.

He wasn't really a famous doctor though, more of a doctor who was famous.

Pug160 · 25-04-2013 09:45PM

If the beers are served at close to zero that will definitely make a difference as the colder a beer is the less you can taste of it, which is why good beers are best when served chilled rather than very cold and why rubbish beers need to be as cold as possible. I still think I'd be able to tell the difference but I can appreciate that it would be harder.

The second point is regarding the fruit beer comment. Well, it's a fruit beer, so that's why it was harder to tell the difference probably. A decent, non fruit beer would be easier to tell. But stranger things have happened. Maybe I'll try a taste test some night when I'm bored.

MadsL · 25-04-2013 09:52PM

Frank Black wrote: »

Oh.

He wasn't really a famous doctor though, more of a doctor who was famous.

That was the joke.

Never mind.

Frank Black · 25-04-2013 09:55PM

MadsL wrote: »

That was the joke.

Never mind.

Oh, now I get it.

Good one.

25-04-2013 09:56PM

MadsL wrote: »

I have no idea. Does it mean that my experience is therefore a fiction? No.

Did that barman say it was vodka or did you fill that bit in? I'm just trying to get things straight because at one point you were sure it was vodka, other times you don't know and there's no way to know, I just find it very puzzling.

Perhaps if you could make a point i could address it. You haven't said anything other than I don't believe it yet.

See what you just did above? An answer to a question, but not a straight one.

:rolleyes:

You've implied I'm a rape apologist/denier, called me Victor Meldrew because I don't believe everything you say, said you're leaving because someone dared to ask how you gleaned some knowledge which you later decide you actually didn't know, what would you call such behaviour?

I said you were victim-blaming, you still appear to be attacking the victim.

Attacking you? Good one.

Because any questions you have asked I have answered, the rest of your posts is you poo-pooing any idea that this could have happened.

There's more than one inconsistency in what you've said and I'm just looking for clarification is all. First you seem to know it's vodka, then you don't, then some guy apparently told you (who doesn't sound like the most reliable source) it was vodka. Then for the quantity it was 1.14 litres and then wait, no, it was about a naggin.

MadsL · 25-04-2013 10:19PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Did that barman say it was vodka or did you fill that bit in? I'm just trying to get things straight because at one point you were sure it was vodka, other times you don't know and there's no way to know, I just find it very puzzling.

What would it be other than a clear fairly tasteless spirit. Either vodka or slivovice? I doubt the bartender specified it was vodka.

See what you just did above? An answer to a question, but not a straight one.

Ask a question and I'll answer it, you just haven't been.

You've implied I'm a rape apologist/denier, called me Victor Meldrew because I don't believe everything you say, said you're leaving because someone dared to ask how you gleaned some knowledge which you later decide you actually didn't know, what would you call such behaviour?

What would you call it when someone blames a victim? When they repeat "I don't believe it" without offering any basis for denial?

Attacking you? Good one.

You weren't? Good impression.

There's more than one inconsistency in what you've said and I'm just looking for clarification is all. First you seem to know it's vodka, then you don't, then some guy apparently told you (who doesn't sound like the most reliable source) it was vodka. Then for the quantity it was 1.14 litres and then wait, no, it was about a naggin.

I apologise if my memory of an event that put me in a hospital twenty years ago is not as sharp as you would like. I must try harder.

Yellowblackbird · 25-04-2013 11:28PM

Seachmall wrote: »

Your post is fairly clear-cut and specific about the point it's making.

It's also 100% wrong.

100% wrong? I remember posting an opinion not a mathematical formula

You know the single motivating factor in every man who has ever committed rape?

Are you qualified to determine the motivations of any rapist?

Seachmall · 25-04-2013 11:31PM

Yellowblackbird wrote: »

100% wrong? I remember posting an opinion not a mathematical formula

You know the single motivating factor in every man who has ever committed rape?

Are you qualified to determine the motivations of any rapist?

Who's talking about motivation?

You said "Rape we are told is about power and control so the rapist won't sate his sick needs with in an inaminate piece of meat".

But rapists do. Hence you being wrong. It's pretty cut and dry.

astonaidan · 25-04-2013 11:44PM

I had my drinks spiked in a "Lovely" establishment in Galway, I couldnt remember a single thing that happened after I drank my drink when I came back from the bathroom.
My guess is the spike wasnt meant for me though, being a guy

Yellowblackbird · 25-04-2013 11:55PM

Seachmall wrote: »

Who's talking about motivation?

You said "Rape we are told is about power and control so the rapist won't sate his sick needs with in an inaminate piece of meat".

But rapists do. Hence you being wrong. It's pretty cut and dry.

A woman who would normally have sexual power over a man. He gets his kick out of taking that control from her. Her fear, helplessness and powerlessness vividly animated to him at close and intimate quarters through every moment of the attack. She is concious of and experiences his power over her.

To what extent if any is this present if the woman is unconcious or dead? Surely it is common sense to see that there is a difference?

Is Drink Spiking an Urban Myth or big catch all excuse?

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