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Since the article mentions it, the amount of carbonation in any given beverage actually varies by a lot. The traditional measurement of carbonation is in "volum

Since the article mentions it, the amount of carbonation in any given beverage actually varies by a lot. The traditional measurement of carbonation is in "volumes", which is the amount of space the CO2 would take up at standard temperature and pressure (32F and 1 atm). Coca Cola is usually packaged at 3 volumes; if you took all the CO2 out of the soda it would occupy 3x the volume of the soda it came from. Alcoholic beverages on the other hand have a pretty wide range of regular carbonation levels. On your lower end you have stouts and Scottish ales at 1.9-2.1, and on the high end you get your dubbel and heffe weisen at 3-3.5 volumes. Champagne is regularly in the 4.5-6 range, which necessitates a different bottle and closure design to handle the 2-3x pressure it contains compared to beer. On a particularly dumb note, ciders are limited by law to 0.64g per 100ml, or 3.2 volumes. Above that level they cease being ciders and instead become a sparkling wine. This is very important because natural cider is taxed at $0.226 per gallon, while sparkling wine is taxed at $3.30 or $3.40 per gallon depending on how the carbonation is added. This is a difference of roughly 30 cents per standard bottle, or $1.79 per six pack; enough of a difference to make similar products more attractive on the market place shelf. https://www.ttb.gov/tax-audit/quick-reference-guide-to-wine-excise-tax https://www.ttb.gov/tax-audit/quick-reference-guide-to-wine-...

divbzero 5y ago
Whoa, the numerical carbonation levels actually correspond pretty well to my memory of how “fizzy” those drinks taste on the tongue. This is the coolest trivia I’ve learned in awhile.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
You know what's even dumber? Having a product that can vary in price 1000x or more...and taxing it by volume, instead of by its price. Yet another way the rich shift more tax burden away from themselves. They pay a pittance of a tax on a $5,000 bottle of wine, while everyone buying "two buck chuck" at Trader Joes ($3-4/bottle) is getting hit with a huge tax percentage-wise. Even taxing alcohol at different rates just because it's made with specific fruits is idiotic. It smacks of lobbyists buying off their congressional reps to get a rival sub-industry slapped with a higher tax. Just tax alcohol by its value, across the board at the same rate.
- jabl 5y ago
  If alcohol is taxed based on public health and safety concerns, it makes sense that the tax is proportional to the amount on neat alcohol contained in a product rather than the price of the product. Or maybe even a "progressive" tax, if we consider things like distilled spirits to cause more rowdy behavior and other kinds of disturbances.
  - thedrbrian 5y ago
    Usually the people getting rowdy are drinking cheapo lager or whatever as they know you’ll get more alcohol per unit currency that way.
    - jabl 5y ago
      Yes, but there is an argument to be made that if the best 'bang per buck' would be distilled spirits, the problem with rowdy drinkers would be even worse, as a bottle of cheap vodka/whisky/whatever is more portable, and particularly for younger more inexperienced people it's much easier to drink it too fast and end up in the ER getting your stomach pumped.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    If alcohol were taxed on public health concerns it would be a tax based on the percentage of alcohol, not CO2 content.
    - pantalaimon 5y ago
      There is a tax on CO2 in drinks?
      - Retric 5y ago
        Indirectly, the difference between ciders and sparkling wine is CO2 content but it’s a binary difference where in rising CO2 within each range has zero tax implications.
    - 5y ago
ssl232 5y ago
> On a particularly dumb note, ciders are limited by law to 0.64g per 100ml, or 3.2 volumes. Above that level they cease being ciders and instead become a sparkling wine. This is very important because natural cider is taxed at $0.226 per gallon, while sparkling wine is taxed at $3.30 or $3.40 per gallon depending on how the carbonation is added. This is a difference of roughly 30 cents per standard bottle, or $1.79 per six pack; enough of a difference to make similar products more attractive on the market place shelf. I've seen this with chocolate too. The definition of chocolate in the UK and EU apparently requires one of the ingredients to be sugar, making sugar-free chocolate unable to be called chocolate unless it actually contains sugar. A friend of mine runs a keto chocolate company and he has to include a small amount of coconut sap to actually be allowed to market it as chocolate, even though he's trying to minimise carbohydrate content. On the one hand, this seems a rather silly law, but on the other hand, how else do you define what a particular product is? Is it down to how it's marketed? Because then companies will just market it as something else that still hints it's the thing it's not, to avoid the tax and potentially gain more price-conscious customers.
- manarth 5y ago
  > "how else do you define what a particular product is?" > "companies will just market it as something else that still hints it's the thing it's not" Through extraordinarily detailed discussions of its characteristics (e.g. when it goes stale, does it go hard, or soft?) Jaffa "Cakes": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Legal_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Legal_status
  - iandinwoodie 5y ago
    After reading that, I have a new appreciation for the page’s opening sentence: “Jaffa Cakes are biscuit-sized cakes …”
  - willyt 5y ago
    That kind of exemplifies a very British problem that we have with very vague and increasingly slow bureaucracy. There’s often no clear cut answer to a question. I think it’s one of the reasons why we get the least amount of productive work done per hour in Western Europe. In our national mythology we think of ourselves as a low bureaucracy country compared to say France, but in actual fact in those countries you will quickly be told no if something is not permitted whereas here there’s a lot of equivocating until, after 6 months of uncertainty you reach a seemingly random semi compromise result.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
Why is standard temperature the freezing point? Why not 70F or 20C or something more within the range of normal experience? We didn't set 1 atmosphere as the atmospheric pressure experienced at the average altitude in the Himalayas.
- saurik 5y ago
  > Why not 70F or 20C or something more within the range of normal experience? FWIW that is literally a thing and it is seriously called "normal temperature and pressure".
- fanf2 5y ago
  There are a lot of slightly different standards for temperature and pressure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_conditions_for_temperature_and_pressure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_conditions_for_temper...
- ectopod 5y ago
  How are you going to set the temperature of your sample to 20C before you measure it? Freezing point can easily be achieved with an ice bath.
Bradlinc 5y ago
Though some what off topic: Even though style may dictate a different carbonation level. Draft beer is typically carbonated to around 2.4 volumes so it pours on most draft systems at bars. If you carbonate beer to far above this amount of volumes, the beer won't pour well. That is one reason why certain styles may taste different in a bottle versus on draft.

divbzero 5y ago

Whoa, the numerical carbonation levels actually correspond pretty well to my memory of how “fizzy” those drinks taste on the tongue. This is the coolest trivia I’ve learned in awhile.

KennyBlanken 5y ago

You know what's even dumber? Having a product that can vary in price 1000x or more...and taxing it by volume, instead of by its price. Yet another way the rich shift more tax burden away from themselves. They pay a pittance of a tax on a $5,000 bottle of wine, while everyone buying "two buck chuck" at Trader Joes ($3-4/bottle) is getting hit with a huge tax percentage-wise. Even taxing alcohol at different rates just because it's made with specific fruits is idiotic. It smacks of lobbyists buying off their congressional reps to get a rival sub-industry slapped with a higher tax. Just tax alcohol by its value, across the board at the same rate.

jabl 5y ago
If alcohol is taxed based on public health and safety concerns, it makes sense that the tax is proportional to the amount on neat alcohol contained in a product rather than the price of the product. Or maybe even a "progressive" tax, if we consider things like distilled spirits to cause more rowdy behavior and other kinds of disturbances.
- thedrbrian 5y ago
  Usually the people getting rowdy are drinking cheapo lager or whatever as they know you’ll get more alcohol per unit currency that way.
  - jabl 5y ago
    Yes, but there is an argument to be made that if the best 'bang per buck' would be distilled spirits, the problem with rowdy drinkers would be even worse, as a bottle of cheap vodka/whisky/whatever is more portable, and particularly for younger more inexperienced people it's much easier to drink it too fast and end up in the ER getting your stomach pumped.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  If alcohol were taxed on public health concerns it would be a tax based on the percentage of alcohol, not CO2 content.
  - pantalaimon 5y ago
    There is a tax on CO2 in drinks?
    - Retric 5y ago
      Indirectly, the difference between ciders and sparkling wine is CO2 content but it’s a binary difference where in rising CO2 within each range has zero tax implications.
  - 5y ago

ssl232 5y ago

> On a particularly dumb note, ciders are limited by law to 0.64g per 100ml, or 3.2 volumes. Above that level they cease being ciders and instead become a sparkling wine. This is very important because natural cider is taxed at $0.226 per gallon, while sparkling wine is taxed at $3.30 or $3.40 per gallon depending on how the carbonation is added. This is a difference of roughly 30 cents per standard bottle, or $1.79 per six pack; enough of a difference to make similar products more attractive on the market place shelf. I've seen this with chocolate too. The definition of chocolate in the UK and EU apparently requires one of the ingredients to be sugar, making sugar-free chocolate unable to be called chocolate unless it actually contains sugar. A friend of mine runs a keto chocolate company and he has to include a small amount of coconut sap to actually be allowed to market it as chocolate, even though he's trying to minimise carbohydrate content. On the one hand, this seems a rather silly law, but on the other hand, how else do you define what a particular product is? Is it down to how it's marketed? Because then companies will just market it as something else that still hints it's the thing it's not, to avoid the tax and potentially gain more price-conscious customers.

manarth 5y ago
> "how else do you define what a particular product is?" > "companies will just market it as something else that still hints it's the thing it's not" Through extraordinarily detailed discussions of its characteristics (e.g. when it goes stale, does it go hard, or soft?) Jaffa "Cakes": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Legal_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Legal_status
- iandinwoodie 5y ago
  After reading that, I have a new appreciation for the page’s opening sentence: “Jaffa Cakes are biscuit-sized cakes …”
- willyt 5y ago
  That kind of exemplifies a very British problem that we have with very vague and increasingly slow bureaucracy. There’s often no clear cut answer to a question. I think it’s one of the reasons why we get the least amount of productive work done per hour in Western Europe. In our national mythology we think of ourselves as a low bureaucracy country compared to say France, but in actual fact in those countries you will quickly be told no if something is not permitted whereas here there’s a lot of equivocating until, after 6 months of uncertainty you reach a seemingly random semi compromise result.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

Why is standard temperature the freezing point? Why not 70F or 20C or something more within the range of normal experience? We didn't set 1 atmosphere as the atmospheric pressure experienced at the average altitude in the Himalayas.

saurik 5y ago
> Why not 70F or 20C or something more within the range of normal experience? FWIW that is literally a thing and it is seriously called "normal temperature and pressure".
fanf2 5y ago
There are a lot of slightly different standards for temperature and pressure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_conditions_for_temperature_and_pressure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_conditions_for_temper...
ectopod 5y ago
How are you going to set the temperature of your sample to 20C before you measure it? Freezing point can easily be achieved with an ice bath.

Bradlinc 5y ago

Though some what off topic: Even though style may dictate a different carbonation level. Draft beer is typically carbonated to around 2.4 volumes so it pours on most draft systems at bars. If you carbonate beer to far above this amount of volumes, the beer won't pour well. That is one reason why certain styles may taste different in a bottle versus on draft.