London Beer Flood and other food disasters

On October 17, 1814 at the Meux family brewery in Tottenham Court, London, a massive vat of beer cracked open, spilling 3,500 barrels of beer and killing eight people. Smithsonian's Food & Think blog sums up the "London Beer Flood" and several other "Deadly Disasters Caused By Food." Here's another:

Boston Molasses Disaster: In Boston’s North End, near the city’s financial district and working class Italian neighborhoods, there stood a molasses tank owned by the Purity Distilling Company. Built in 1915, the vat was capable of holding some 2.5 million gallons; however, by 1919, locals were complaining that it was leaking, and on the afternoon of January 15, it exploded. Flying metal knocked out the supports of nearby elevated train tracks and a 15-foot-high wave of molasses crashed through the streets at some 35 miles per hour, knocking down and enveloping people in its path. Parts of Boston were standing in two to three feet of molasses and the disaster left 21 dead and 150 injured.

"Four Deadly Disasters Caused by Food"

"Boston Molasses Disaster" (Boston Public Library on Flickr)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Palefire

Okay, 8 people were killed which is unfortunate. But really, how can you really consider a beer flood a disaster? Half of the men in America want to die this way.
- NoOneSpecific
  
  Because the 8 were rescued 3x and they kept jumping back in. By the 4th time the rescuers just said “Screw em!”.
- Chris Henry
  
  When we say we want to drown in beer, we don’t mean that literally.
NoOneSpecific

The great “Boston Molasses Disaster” of 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919…
Guest

I’ve heard that on a hot august afternoon you can still catch a whiff of the molasses.
- Spriggan_Prime
  
  In certain older basements of the North End that haven’t been heavily redone this is still true. I haven’t ever smelled it out doors but many claim it still.
dculberson

“My brother and I used to say that drowning in beer was like heaven,
eh? Now he’s not here, and I got two soakers… This isn’t heaven,
this sucks!” -Bob Mackenzie
Xof

I am ecstatic to see the Boston Molasses Disaster getting more press. It is my favorite food-based industrial accident of all time.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Chuck-Holt/100002566896916 Chuck Holt

But how do we know that the supposed “victims” hadn’t already drank themselves to death, leaving their beer-soaked corpses for the city to clean up? Explain that one.
http://twitter.com/cicadamania Cicada Mania

Now that’s what I call a sticky situation.
- http://twitter.com/cjporkchop cjporkchop
  
  *puts on sunglasses*
  “Now that’s what I call a sticky situation.”
  (opening scream of “Won’t Get Fooled Again”)
Mike Wood

Awesome. I love it. This is the kind of disaster that simply doesn’t happen anymore. Like Jumbo the Elephant getting hit by a train in a little town in Ontario, or that famous photo of the train wreck at Paris’ Montparnasse station.

Someone hire a couple of interns, do the research and write a book. I want it.
- Bernard Dubuisson
  
  “This is the kind of disaster that simply doesn’t happen anymore.”
  
  A few weeks ago, in Belgium, an ice cream store manager died from the explosion of a pressurized whipped cream tank (apparently a defect manometer problem — he just kept on filling the tank until it blew in his face). OK, maybe not a Great Food Disaster but still a relevant way of dying from food injury.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    A couple of years ago, Xeni posted a story (which I sent her) about a guy dying in a vat of chocolate. About a hundred commenters excoriated her for reporting on it. Beer and molassesplosions don’t raise an eyebrow.
    
    The moral of the story: one food death is a tragedy, multiple food deaths are high-larious.
    - Lane Yarbrough
      
      http://boingboing.net/2009/07/08/death-by-chocolate-n.html
      
      The comment section has been closed, so 100 you say?
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        That’s a symbolic 100, but there should some comments in there. We still haven’t gotten all the imports fixed.
      - HenryPootel
        
        By “symbolic 100″ perhaps you meant “bajillion”
    - Spriggan_Prime
      
      I think George Carlin or Chevy Chase explained this once in an interview (it was some famous comedian) a man getting kicked in the crotch if funny in a mid distance to far away shot but in a close up people usually don’t laugh as much. I guess there’s an economy of scale to comedic effect.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        The Aristocrats would be utterly creepy and unfunny if it were one parent and one child, but Mom, Dad, Junior and Sis and it’s hysterical. Even better if you can work Fido and Fluffy into it.
      - Spriggan_Prime
        
        Ah ha! I think that was where it was from. But yes, exactly.
  - Beanolini
    
    “This is the kind of disaster that simply doesn’t happen anymore.”
    
    A few weeks ago, in Belgium,
    
    And a couple of months ago, five people were killed in a moonshine explosion in the other Boston. Again, not quite ‘great’.
- Ed Gaillard
  
  There’s a good book about the Boston Molasses Flood: Stephen Puleo’s Dark Tide
Robert Cruickshank

The new slogan, after the brewery reopened with stronger vats: “Tastes great, less killing”.
traalfaz

The Boston Mollasses Disaster was covered on History Channel’s “Engineering Disasters” show a bunch of years ago. The tank was designed by someone who had no clue what he was doing, just hotdog engineering by what seemed right. It was horribly under strength.
cservant

I remember seeing this on TV, the Boston disaster. Apparently, one of the problems was the significant temperature change the tank experienced during that particular day. The change was either local weather or the new addition of molasses, or both that caused the fermentation process to accelerate, thus causing the explosion.

For sure it was not overfilled.
humansaretheproblem

Actually, this never happened. It was a fake release published by Anheuser Busch to scare consumers away from its competition. In fact, soon after AB started running advertisements in New England newspapers touting its own safety record and telling consumers not to buy beer from the company that was “allegedly” involved.

Within six months the Purity Distilling Company had closed for good, and guess who bought its assets in bankruptcy auctions? You guessed in — Anheuser Busch.

But I think what’s most amazing is that despite the evidence of AB’s involvement leaking in the 1950′s, this same story continues to be told.
- dculberson
  
  Really? What’s your source?
  - humansaretheproblem
    
    Here’s one of the ads. Notice the dress of the character. This was designed by AB to appeal to upper class citizens. At the time, the idea was if they could get the upper class to like their beverage, the lower class would follow — essentially equating Budweiser to the American dream.
    - Spriggan_Prime
      
      Your ad has nothing to do with the flood or any purchasing AB made. It does show that AB was interested in growing their domestic market but that’s it.
- Phoc Yu
  
  I second the [citation needed]; your ad doesn’t cut it. 21 people didn’t die from a fake PR event.
- Spriggan_Prime
  
  Really…
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

I read that if there’s ever a High Fructose Corn Syrup flood all life on Earth would end within 10 years. The lucky ones will drown in the initial deluge.
Frank W

This post reminds me of the greatness that is Glen Baxter.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1201564949 Chris Lites

Man, I remember this spill, it was great… wait, no, maybe I don’t remember it. I’m pretty sure I was told I had a good time.
http://www.facebook.com/joly.macfie Joly MacFie

As a youngster in the 60s I read a detailed eyewitness account of the Boston Molasses disaster in the Readers Digest. I am still haunted by it.
Lane Yarbrough

What? FOOD disasters? These are FOOD CONTAINMENT FAILURE disasters. If you want to stick to that assumption, the list could go on to mention famine, that’s a “food” disaster.

One of the best food disasters I read was about a guy who convinced another guy he could can food. His name was Stephan Goldner, the purchaser was Sir John Franklin.

Short Version: http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Nunavut/franklin_expedition.htm

Where I read it: http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Blink-Tragic-Franklins-Expedition/dp/0471404209/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314823632&sr=8-1
ookluh

You have a favorite food-based industrial accident? Until today I didn’t know this could even be a category. I sincerely want to see the rest of your favorites list…I think.
z7q2

Back in the 70s in my home-town of Phoenixville, PA some kids opened up the valves on a few parked rail tankers full of corn syrup. There was no apocalyptic flood, rather, the result was a large patch of ground super-saturated with corn syrup which tended to spontaneously combust occasionally over the next few years until they got tired of that and dug it all up again.
niktemadur

Anybody here read Salman Rushdie’s “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”? In chapter one a 10.0 earthquake hits the town of Tequila, Jalisco in Mexico, all the vats holding the distilling and/or aging potable basically blast into shreds, and a river of tequila runs through Tequila.
Coincidentally, in spanish the word ‘ahogado’ means either (1) drowned or (2) passed-out drunk.
So whoever did not die ‘ahogado’ (1), died ‘ahogado’ (2).
http://profiles.google.com/mike.grl M D

io9 had a a write up about this sort of thing last year. They included fried tarantula too!

http://io9.com/5697733/the-7-varieties-of-weird+but+true-food-disaster