1.

Chilled beer The perfect drink for every mood, every occasion. Plus, it's perfect for summer days and you can drink for a long time (in fact, if you carefully control the pace of your drinking, you can drink the entire day) Also, you can drink a beer anytime a day and not feel guilty.

2.

Old Monk + Ice + Coke (and a dash of lemon) I have mentioned Old Monk separately and not generically as Rum because I think it deserves a special mention. Nothing beats this drink when you are sitting on the beach, watching the sun go down midst the crashing of the waves on the shore.

3.

Whiskey/Scotch + Ice Perfect for a corporate set-up. Makes you feel dignified and good about yourself.

4.

Tequila shots When you are super-happy and want to get sloshed, do crazy stuff and then not remember it the next morning.

(P.S. I haven't mentioned any cocktails because I believe that good liquor should not be tampered with) Overall, whisk(e)y, straight or with limited rocks seems to be the winner. Runners-up include: Martini Manhattan Old Fashioned Boilermaker Any hard liquor, straight

Arguable, based on their origins/use in fiction or by famous "manly men": Mojito Gimlet Vesper Mint Julep Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack popularized Dry Manhattans. Fellow actor/womanizer, Errol Flynn drank Mojitos, as did Ernest Hemingway, though their manliness has probably expired. Hemingway also created a cocktail named after his book, Death in the Afternoon, which is tasty but not terribly manly. Speaking of writers, Faulkner drank Mint Juleps, Bukowski had his Boilermakers, and Raymond Chandler preferred Gimlets, just like his fictional manly man, Philip Marlowe. Another famous fictional drinker is, of course, Don Draper, who takes anOld Fashioned. While on a fictional tip, James Bond can't be avoided and of course he

drank Martinis, but he took them with vodka, or as a Vesper, which is far, far less manly than a Gin Martini, preferred by politicians like Winston Churchill, FDR, Herbert Hoover, and, well, anyone with good taste.

America - Tequila or Whiskey straight. Kentucky - Bourbon Russia - Vodka straight The Caribbean and/or a Pirate Ship - Rum straight. Mexico - Tequila straight. France - Chug a bottle of wine, ripping the cork off with your manly gaping maw. Then collapse into a state of ennui. Italy - Grappa Republic of Ireland - Whiskey straight, Guinness chaser. or Reverse that. Your manly choice. Czech Republic - A Stein of Pilsner Germany - A massive stein of wheat beer. Rinse wash repeat. Australia - Fosters, chugged, then crushed on head. England - A Nip and a Half (Whiskey and a half pint.) Then order a pint glass of lager, break the glass and start a fight. (Unless you are in a pub where they've switched to plastic pint glasses. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/... Finland - Vodka, and shockingly, Guinness.

Myth: Alcohol kills brain cells. Reality: Alcohol does not kill brain cells exactly, it blocks certain molecular mechanisms in the brain. Drinking too much alcohol has the effect that the brain adapts to the inebriated state and when the brain is not under the influence of alcohol, the lack of alcohol causes it to not function as well. Myth: You can't regrow brain cells. Reality: You are growing brain cells all the time. The brain contains stem cells that are used to repair and replace brain cells. The hippocampus creates new neurons all the time, to help create new memory. Primary olfactory neurons die regularly and are replaced regularly. Myth: Brain size dictates intelligence. Reality: There is no relationship between brain size and intelligence. Albert Einstein, after his death, was noted to have had a smaller than average brain. Myth: The left brain is logical and rational, the right brain is intuitive and creative. Reality: The problem with this myth is that there is a bit of truth in there, mixed in with myth. The two hemispheres of the brain are different in the functions that they do, but it is more complicated than one being rational and boring and the other being creative and fun loving. While the two hemispheres do have

distinct differences, whether a person is being creative or rational, both hemispheres of the brain are responsible. For creativity both left and right right brain work together in harmony. It is a false premise to say things like ''You need to do more right brain thinking and less left brain thinking'' What does that even mean anyway? Even if it was true, I fail to see how that would be in any way useful. Myth: Listening to Mozart makes you more intelligent. Reality: Sorry, nope. No studies have ever confirmed that Mozart effected cognition positively (or negatively) in any real way. Myth: As you get older, your mind deteriorates. Reality: This one also requires caution as there is some truth mixed in with myth. In some respects the brain of an older person is sharper, more intelligent and better at problem solving. The thing that happens as the brain gets older is it becomes slower, has less attention span and a little less working memory. There are a few more aspects of the brain that diminish with age, but quite a few cognitive abilities of the brain are preserved, regardless of age.

Myth: We only use 10% of our brain except for Einstein, who used 90%. Reality: All parts of the brain are doing something nearly all of the time, including when resting. Most tasks use almost all of the brain almost of all the time. Myth: Brain scans show certain parts of the brain "lighting up" and being used when people do certain things. Reality: fMRI images are misleading. The entire brain has nearly the same activity level all of the time. The colorful fMRI brain scan images are created by measuring minute differences (around 1%) in activity level, averaging them across many experiments, and then thresholding the image so that everthing with slightly less activity is black. The rest is drawn in bright colors.