This how-to guide, from the September 2006 edition of “Boys’ Life” magazine, makes the process of building a model ship in a bottle look rather simple…

Building a ship in a bottle only looks mysterious. With patience, skill and a few tools, you can finish a bottle craft while your friends wonder, “How’d he do that?”

Storing wine in cartons rather than bottles may improve the flavour of some varieties which can be prone to taste contamination during the fermentation process.

Admittedly, serving wine from a carton lacks the aesthetic appeal of a bottle, and cartons have also been criticised for allowing flavour-destroying oxygen to seep in during storage. A new study, however, reveals that although the criticism of wine cartons for allowing oxidation is valid, they have the advantage of soaking up chemicals that can ruin the flavour in other ways.

The distribution of wine in cardboard containers, an idea that took off in Australia some 30 years ago, giving rise to the colloquialism “cardboard chateau”, may not appeal much to wine connoisseurs, but is an idea being embraced by wine producers looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

Now that wine producers are talking about reducing their carbon footprint – that is, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the transportation of wine – selling the beverage in alternative, lighter packaging instead of heavier glass seems like the right thing to do.