Here's the dumbest excuse for a DUI I've ever seen.

[Archae]

And 10 DUI's?
I'd say the guy is a hopeless case.

Man arrested for 10th OWI blames beer-battered fish

FRIENDSHIP, Wis. —Authorities say a Wisconsin man suspected of his 10th drunken driving offense is blaming a Wisconsin tradition for his latest legal troubles.

A criminal complaint filed in Adams County says 75-year-old John Przybyla told the deputy that stopped him that the reason he smelled like alcohol is because he had been at a fish fry and had eaten beer-battered fish.

http://www.wisn.com/news/man-arrested-for-10th-owi-blames-beerbattered-fish/30177820

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1. i see your point, but really, is there a smart excuse?

[Archae]

4. Yeah. An honest one, "Yeah, I've been drinking..."

[unblock]

8. ha! neither smart nor an excuse!

[Liberal Veteran]

7. I though that homemade apple sauce tasted off. It must have fermented.

[Warpy]

2. There's a grain of truth in a universe filled with galaxies

Alcoholics have to be very careful not to eat anything cooked with booze. However, the temperature at which that beer battered fish hit the oil would have volatized most of the alcohol by the time the fish was cooked through. I sincerely doubt he tasted either beer or alcohol.

Plus, he's given no sign of being on the wagon, anyway.

Here in NM, we're seeing a "lifetime interlock" bill and I think it might pass. It recognizes that no one with mulitple DUIs can be trusted to know when he's sober enough to drive, so the breathalyzer interlock has to be installed before he gets his new car.

Then again, one lowdown drunk was caught with his 5 year old grandson in the car. He was using the kid to blow into the breathalyzer so the old bastard could keep driving.

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6. actually, about 85% of the alcohol remains (link):

Deep Fry Inefficient Evaporator

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, different amounts of alcohol are burned off from food by different methods of cooking. Immersing the alcohol in a boiling liquid and then removing it from the heat -- the method by which batter is cooked -- is one of the least effective means of reducing alcohol, leaving around 85 percent of the original alcohol content in the food.

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/beer-batter-contain-alcohol-27726.html


having said that, the volume of alcohol in the amount of beer batter to begin with is pretty small, it's hard to imagine getting drunk on that.

[Warpy]

9. Water boils at 212F (well, 200F here), alcohol at 174.2F at sea level.

and the usual temperature for deep frying battered fish is 375.

That makes a huge difference.

Bottom line, it was a bogus excuse. Something tells me all his excuses are hilariously bogus.

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14. but the food certainly doesn't reach 375, and it's not very hot for very long.

generally, fish is cooked to an internal temperature in the 135-145 degree range. that's the internal temperature, so the outside might be a tad higher, but not much.

moreover, shortly after the alcohol is heated, the fish is removed from the fryer and quickly cools down again. evaporation merely turns it into gas form, it doesn't necessarily remove it; if the oil didn't actually draw it out, then it's still there and returns to liquid form when it cools down.


remember that essentially no chemical reactions is completely efficient, and the kitchen is certainly not near the ideal.

cooking removes between about 15%-70% of the alcohol, depending on the method. deep frying is probably the least efficient method; i believe flambé is the best.


i certainly agree that the excuse is entirely bogus, but again, not because cooked beer-battered fish is alcohol free, but simply because he couldn't get legally drunk on the amount of alcohol that even goes into it before cooking.

[Warpy]

17. Then reread my post

especially "the oil would have volatized most of the alcohol." Nowhere did I say alcohol free.

Most of the water is volatized, also, which is why the coating is crisp instead of sodden.

Flambé might look spectacular but it isn't terribly efficient because the temperature isn't as high. You're only feeding the flames with the 30% or so that is cooked off quickly at the boiling temperature of water.

[Liberal Veteran]

3. It is more inventive than the old mouthwash excuse.

Some folks never learn.

[GreatGazoo]

5. That's why they call it addiction:

the drinking is not a choice for them. Driving, on the other hand, is.

"To everyone else the problem is alcohol, but to the alcoholic the problem is everyone else telling them not to drink."

[Warpy]

10. When my ex started to hide bottles

I had to wonder why because I was a failure as an enabler. I knew nagging, marking bottles, pouring it down the sink, watering it down with tea, and all the other stuff enablers do to try to control an alcoholic just didn't work, I'd grown up watching them not work.

I'd just put the bottles out in the open with the rest of them without comment.

It finally dawned on me that he was hiding them from himself, the better to lie to himself about how serious his drinking problem was getting.

I'm delighted to say he finally got sober and stayed that way. He wasn't a bad guy, just one with an addiction.

[GreatGazoo]

13. Glad to hear someone made it back from addiction.

Alcohol is a tough one because it is everywhere. Many who don't understand addiction just think that alcoholics are making a bad choice over and over but it isn't a choice -- by definition it is an overwhelming compulsion. Bad things, such as addiction, can happen to good people.

Good to know someone beat it.

[Warpy]

16. I'm sure he fights it every day of his life

and will until the day he dies.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

11. Sometimes I just eat the fried batter and not the fish

But I only do that to forget my problems for awhile, so I've got it under control.

[LuvNewcastle]

12. I saw a case years ago

where a judge forbade a man with multiple DUIs from driving again and ordered him to move within walking distance of a bar. I thought that was smart.

An old friend of mine got so many DUIs that they put him in jail for a year. He loved to go to bars and casinos and he drove around because cabs are expensive here and we have little public transit. He still drove drunk when he got out of jail. Some people just can't stop themselves. Fortunately, he never hurt anyone else.

[polichick]

15. Sounds pretty fishy to me.