Cafeoutdoors.com: yeast infections

A true story here, for fun.

My wife and I had a homebrew supply business for 15 years. We started it in California, and moved it to Missouri when we came here. That's the stuff I talk about in the "Brewery Pub" forum, below.

Anyway, we had a catalog and did a lot of mail order business. There's a chemical, Potassium Sorbate, used in winemaking to STOP fermentation. It stops yeast from working (when you want to leave some sugar in wine to leave it slightly sweet). The normal dose in winemaking is 1 ounce in 5 gallons of wine.

Apparently, doctors prescribe the same chemical to stop yeast infections in women. We had a female customer in L.A. who started ordering the stuff in quantity, and she confided on the phone to my wife that the doctor had prescribed it for her little yeast "problem". She was smart to figure out that we sold the pure chemical at a fraction of the price a drugstore would.

This lady routinely ordered FIVE POUNDS of Potassium Sorbate every couple of months for years. That's enough to stop yeast from working in 80 GALLONS of wine. I started (privately) calling her "Bubbles", and I wanted to slip little notes in her packages - "Hope things are working well for you!", etc. - but my wife wouldn't let me.

That gal must have had a helluva deal going!