In his Life of Washington, Marshall had described the passage of the Fifth Amendment and its nine fellows. By the end of 1791, Congress had passed and the states had ratified ten amendments. The Ninth and Tenth were general statements about the division of rights and powers among the federal and state governments and the people. The First through the Eighth, by contrast, listed specific prohibitions—no establishment of religion or warrantless searches—and guarantees—freedom of the press, the right to keep and bear arms. The inclusion of this compendium, according to Marshall, had been a matter of political and emotional housekeeping. The “friends” of the government “were anxious to annex to the constitution those explanations and barriers against… possible encroachments… on the liberties of the people which had been loudly demanded, however unfounded… might be the fears by which those demands were suggested.” The Constitution as it left Philadelphia in 1787 was fine, but nervous folk feared imaginary dangers; to please them, Congress drew up the Bill of Rights.
the term executive skills comes from the neurosciences literature and refers to the brain-based skills that are required for humans to execute, or perform, tasks.
One trick almost every distiller I visited tried to play on me was to get me to stick my head into the vat during the final stages of fermentation, when the headspace—the volume of air above the liquid—is a cloud of CO2. Taking a whiff is like sticking a knitting needle up your nose. Too much of it, and you can pass out and fall right into the vat. Fun!)
As different spirits have evolved, they’ve taken on different setups. In Ireland, they use three pot stills to make whisky; in Scotland, it’s two. Clear, light, Puerto Rican rum uses a continuous still, but heavier, darker styles of rum generally use two or three pot stills chained together. Of French brandies, Armagnac is distilled only once in a copper pot still, but cognac twice. Eau de vie is double distilled in a copper pot; aquavit comes off a continuous still.
When the Black Death spread across Europe, from 1347 to 1350, physicians didn’t really have anything to make people feel better besides aqua vitae. So they used them. The French translated aqua vita into eau de vie, and the Dutch called it “burnt wine,” or brandewijn. Exported to England, that got corrupted to “brandy-wine,” and eventually just “brandy.” The Scots started making the stuff out of grains; in Gaelic, they called it “water of life,” usquebaugh, eventually corrupted to “whisky.” By the early 1400s, people were getting addicted to ethanol. Liquor had spread across the world.
In American whisky making, it’s common for distillers to use some of the fermented grain in the mash—before it goes into the still—to mix in with the next batch to be fermented. That portion is called the “backset,” and the whole process is called “sour mash,” just like it says on the bottles. The practice began in the 1800s, probably as a way to keep the same yeast strain consistent.
if a child has ADHD, some executive skills will be impaired. Chief among these are response inhibition, sustained attention, working memory, time management, task initiation, and goal-directed persistence.
