Synthehol

Anyone who has watched any of the variants of Star Trek is familiar with the substance known as synthehol. This is just an amalgam of the words synthetic and alcohol. The idea was that this substance had all the taste and smell of "regular" alcohol but would not get you intoxicated or poison you. My question is: what's the point? Other than the bite, pure vodka or even grain alcohol has no flavor. If you are going to drink and there is no alcohol, you are drinking a Shirley Temple or O'Dooles or even lemonade. So the concept of synthehol is just plain stupid.

We saw yesterday and the day before that Edgar Mullen was slogging down Rei's gift of the first bottle of wine produced on Deucado and he was drinking it primarily because it had alcohol. It was certainly not because he was looking for the flavor. He wanted to get drunk. Now I'm not saying everybody drinks all the time to get drunk because then everybody would end up as raging alcoholics. However, there are so many positive effects of drinking in moderation that without alcohol, again, I say, what is the point.

Recently, my stepson Matt sent me an article about a scientist by the name of Professor David Nutt who thinks he has invented a synthetic version of alcohol which he calls alcosynth. However, unlike Star Trek's synthehol, his version absolutely does give you a buzz but side-steps the deleterious effects of real alcohol such as hangovers, nausea or alcohol poisoning. The substance is a far-distant cousin of valium and Professor Nutt thinks that by 2050 alcosynth might replace all alcohol.

I, for one, reject his statement. Natural fermentation and alcohol have been around for millions of years. Man has evolved with alcohol readily available and our systems have developed to consume it. If you don't overdo it, you don't wake up with a hangover. I know some people used to take Quaaludes (methaqualone) to get a drunk-like effect. If you ever saw the movie The Wolf of Wall Street you'll understand. The Quaalude scene was pretty funny.

The bottom line is this: alcohol is a natural substance and if used in moderation, can lead to positive things. I, personally, am not interested in synthehol or alcosynth or whatever fakakta substance science fiction writers or actual scientists come up with. So I gave my characters the real thing.

By the way, the following image was hand-painted by my extremely talented wife, Denise. Click on the image to view her other paintings.