There must be a way, beyond planning a museum-l happy hour at AAM that the
alcoholic tendencies on this list can be put to good.

At my last job, we were working on the Archives and a Museum for Brown
Forman, which seems to either make or market about every type of booze (the
samples that tempted in the Collections!), as well as fine china and crystal
brands. By the time I left, it seemed the museum wasn't going to become a
reality, so don't get too excited planning field trips.

But in the process of processing we ran into an interesting problem:
        The alcohol. And by extension, all food products in collections. Do
you keep them intact or dispose of the contents and just keep the packaging?
There is the issue of alcohol, and some food, evaporating or emitting scary
gasses and hurting your collection. But the food itself might be important
in the future. You might have the only sample of the original Old Foresters
KY Bourbon from 1870. Or a Twinkie. Or hardtack.
        As much as I wanted to be in the front of the disposal line, I also
remembered a wine bottle from ancient Rome being found and the information
that was gleaned from studying the contents. As much as I can remember, the
balance we struck was sealed bottles were kept intact and opened ones
emptied.

So, from a varying degree of purists, anyone have theories on this type of
thing?

And in defense of diet coke as a mixer- if you get used to it, regular coke
will just disgust you. For a diet coke drinker, there's nothing wrong with
jack and diet coke!



Pamela Feltus
Curator
National Museum of American Jewish Military History
1811 R Street NW, Washington DC 20009
202-265-6280 x201

www.nmajmh.org

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