I recently wrote about cedar waxwings consuming snow, while at the time
they were eating the dried fruit of Korean Ash. I raised the question
whether they were perhaps doing this to dilute the alcohol in the
fruit. Kevin expressed the opinion that there would be no juice,
fermented or otherwise, in the fruit. He then asked, if I had ever
gotten drunk eating raisins. The answer to that is no, particularly
since raisins are _not_ made from overripe fruit. As to his statement
about no juice being in dried fruit, there is some water content in
raisins (up to 15%), although, of course, that is controlled in the
drying process. If there were no moisture at all in raisins, it would
be like eating hardtack! I would hazard to guess that there is some
residual water, albeit very little, in naturally dried fruit.
As I understand, alcohol is produced as fruit becomes over ripe. As
moisture leaves the fruit, the alcohol will become more concentrated,
with the highest concentration occurring during the winter months. The
alcohol may help to preserve the fruit. I recall reading a post to
Cayuga Birds long ago about someone observing unusual behavior in robins
that had become tipsy from eating overripe fruit. Since cedar waxwings
feed exclusively(?) on fruit, I could imagine that they could be more
susceptible to becoming inebriated, if they were to consume fruit that
has alcohol concentrated in it. This can be dangerous for the birds,
since it makes them more susceptible to predation, and if they were to
consume enough of it, they could die. All this made me wonder whether
waxwings could have developed an adaptation for consuming water when
eating overripe fruit in order to dilute their "drink". Kevin may well
be right that the birds coincidentally were very thirsty at the same
time they were consuming the fruit. By the way, I have no idea what
the alcohol content might be in dried, overripe fruit of Korean Ash. I
have not bothered to do a taste test! Does anyone know someone who
might be willing to run an analysis?
Larry
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W. Larry Hymes
120 Vine Street, Ithaca, NY 14850
(H) 607-277-0759, [email protected]
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