On Mon, 12 May 2008, Charles Ellson wrote:

On Sun, 11 May 2008 21:11:31 +0100, Stimpy
wrote:

On Sun, 11 May 2008 20:42:22 +0100, Mark Morton wrote

Is it written down anywhere how much alcohol needs to be in something
before it's "an alcoholic beverage"?

ISTR it used to be 2%.

You are confusing percentage (of alcohol by volume) with degrees proof.
100deg proof = ~57 % abv ('Merkan measure is different).

Yes, which i've never got. My understanding is that British proof was
defined as the percentage of alcohol at which a mixture of the spirit with
gunpowder would explode when lit. Why the septics switched to the
gratuitously different, chemically meaningless and practically
no-better-than-ABV system of 1 degree = 0.5 % ABV, i really don't know.
The usual sheer wrongheadedness, i suppose.

tom

--
Argumentative and pedantic, oh, yes. Although it's properly called
"correct" -- Huge