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Is Fentiman's soda a gateway beverage? Photo: cackhanded/flickr
The Bangor Daily News reports officials from the Aroostook Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition and the Maine Alliance to Prevent Substance Abuse are investigating because the naturally fermented beverage contains less than 0.5 percent alcohol. The incident has other officials proposing the lemonade -- brewed since 1905 -- be reclassified as "imitation liquor," which can't be sold or consumed by minors -- a move that Fentiman's officials are fighting.
The company acknowledges that some alcohol is left in the beverage.
"We remove some components of the product during that process and also add flavoring," Greg Warwick, the president of Fentimans North America, told the paper. "What we end up with is a product that is a mixture of less than 1/2 percent alcohol because of the fermentation process. The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] has deemed this safe for all ages. There should be no restrictions on the distribution or sale of the product."
The school's principal said the student turned in the half-consumed bottle of lemonade after he read there could be alcohol in the soda.
"There was no intent on the student's part to break any school rules or laws," Principal Martin Bouchard said. "This was just a harmless incident."
Should children be banned from drinking naturally fermented soda pop? Let us know in the comments.
[Via Bangor Daily News]
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10-24-2009 @9:28PM teresa vida said... I went to med. school(for surgical nursing) Took chem 121 amoung many other related classes. It would take 18 O'Douls beers in one hour to get the slightest buzz. I don't know what the big deal here is about.
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10-24-2009 @8:12PM teresa vida said... I went to med. school(for surgical nursing) Took chem 121 amoung many other related classes. It would take 18 O'Douls beers in one hour to get the slightest buzz. I don't know what the big deal here is about.
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10-24-2009 @6:31PM Dale said... What? No zero tolerance at this school? Shouldn't the kid be kicked out for 20 days and treated like a criminal? Maybe this school has some common sense and tolerance. I want my kids in a school like this. Some are liberal type educators that think Zero tolerance will make parents happy and need to be treated the same way by the parents, Zero tolerance for any mistake the adminitrators might make too!
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10-29-2009 @6:56AM Brian Workman said... I used to inhale more alcohol in the fumes left over in the air from the aftershave calogne I wore in high school than whats in F.V. Lemonade??!! Big Deal!!!
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10-24-2009 @6:48PM frstripp said... Any body that thinks that this student should be
punished is a A-o--- the FDA said it safe, if not the
ATF would know about it, but he should punish for
RATing on himself,now no one can trust HIM,,,,,,,
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10-24-2009 @6:52PM 100below said... No, way, this is just some uptight school trying everything they can to ban stuff that's a fraction of a percent questionable, there's nothing wrong with lemonade with a tiny bit of alcohol in it as long as it's not significant or making kids getting drunk during lunch...
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10-24-2009 @6:55PM Sue said... Oh for pete's sake!! why don't we just ban everything so no one will have to take responsibility for anything. This is ridiculous.
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10-24-2009 @7:00PM robby said... The headlines state , school in uproar over lemonaide, They sure know how to exagerate.
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10-24-2009 @7:19PM Echo said... Wow... and this is what High School is becoming?
Being a kid in high school, I know the rules about not bringing "alcohol or weapons to school." Some kid got in trouble for bringing a plastic knife. My german teacher has a whole box of them! Take her away to prison!
No really people, we need to stop this psycho mind stuff. A PLASTIC knife is not going to kill someone tomorrow. Maybe if you hit hard enough, you might scrape a bit of the skin.
And this is LEMONADE, it doesn't say "Alcohol" around it in big red shiny letters! There's not enough drink in there to get you just a little bit loopy!
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10-25-2009 @6:49PM jake-the-Snake said... Look people! Leave it to a Maine-e-ack to bring this up. Aren't they all hee-hahs up that way anyway?
He probably had a six-pack in his locker anyway.
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10-24-2009 @8:23PM Ty said... Exactly what's wrong today. Kids never get to grow up because so little is up to them, they never get to learn any kind of judgment or self reliance because it's all done for them. All that's left in the situation is boundary testing against authority figures and they're even clueless on that because they end up doing things that are truly stupid and dangerous because they haven't developed any judgment at all because they've been isolated from the real world.
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10-24-2009 @7:56PM reikipathrs said... 0.5% alcohol means that a 10 ounce bottle of this stuff contains a whopping one and a half ml of alcohol, roughly a quarter of a teaspoon. This is roughly the equivalent of two teaspoons of wine. This is pretty ridiculous.
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10-24-2009 @8:15PM doug said... while on parole, even simple mouthwash is considered alcohol consumption & aviolation of parole for an adult,,,,children able to purchase any beverage containing alcohol contents should not be permissable by any company,get a grip on reality people,,,how much money does our gov.& our states spend on drug & alcohol rehabilatation facility,s
While on parole, even simple mouth wash is considered alcohol consumption for an adult,, children able to purchase any beverage containing (ANY), ALCOHOL content, should not be permissable by any company,who are the ADULTS? & WHO,, are the children????
88888
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10-24-2009 @8:16PM Uncla Al said... When it comes to the tight a$$e$ of the world, nothing can be overprotected.
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10-24-2009 @8:45PM JDG said... "Victorian" is right. If I didn't know better I'd have to say that's exactly the time in history this backwards, up-tight country seems to be.
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10-25-2009 @7:31PM Maus said... "Actually, NO ONE can state categorically that a "small" amount will NOT affect a child at all!!! In fact, NO ONE can state that it will not affect an adult!
Before any of you jump on this statement, let me make you aware of something of which many people are totally ignorant: there are people who are ALLERGIC to alcohol in any form and in any amount, no matter how tiny!"
Sounds like the sort of parent who wants to evacuate the entire school because someone found peanut traces. Calm down, cripes. Read the labels and don't buy anything that will affect your kid. Otherwise you're a perfect storm of OH MY GOODNESS SOMEONE CALL IN THE NATIONAL GUARD, MY CHILDRENS' (fictitious) ALLERGIES MAY BE SET OFF!
You're just ridiculous.
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10-25-2009 @7:43PM Maus said... "Absolutely agree with the harmlessness of this soda, but we are a family who's religion promotes NO alcohol... I'd rather my teens and 9 year old made the choice to avoid this beverage, if only for the sake of consistency."
Better not ever buy fruit juice for your family, especially not anything produced locally or left unrefrigerated.
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10-28-2009 @1:55PM Steve said... "Absolutely agree with the harmlessness of this soda, but we are a family who's (sic) religion promotes NO alcohol"
Choose a different religion then.
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10-29-2009 @9:58PM Sally said... What a crock of crap. I think that these school administrators and officer Wiggum's just want to get their name in the news. Since mouthwash contains 25% alcohol and vanilla extract contains 35%, why aren't they targeting those products as needing to be 21 to purchase also?
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