Talk:Whisky War

Military Conflict Infobox
Template:Infobox military conflict is used on other "Joke War" pages such as the Pig War (1859). I don't think it qualifies as an "errant use" to have an infobox to keep consistency given other precedents around. Additionally, to be clear, the addition of the infobox had nothing to do with "memes". WanukeX (talk) 23:32, 11 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Let's look at the description of the template: "A military conflict infobox (sometimes referred to as a warbox) may be used to summarize information about a particular military conflict (a battle, campaign, war, or group of related wars) in a standard manner." This article quite clearly falls outside the scope of that, given that there's no war or battles to talk about. It's really more of a low level dispute over maritime boundaries (and an insignificant island). Including the military conflict infobox would imply that's it is something which it is not. The infobox that was included also does not add any infomation that would not be better off in the main article text. Gust Justice (talk) 20:59, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The problem with the "particular military conflict" criterion is that it's completely subjective. As has been pointed out, the Pig War wasn't a military conflict either. And the infobox here specified this was a "bloodless war". A bloodless war is defined as "a small conflict, crisis, or dispute between rival groups that is resolved without human death or injury", which certainly seems to fit here.
 * Also the description of the template is not binding in any case because it's not a Wikipedia policy. The only actual wikipedia policy on infoboxes (WP:INFOBOXES) states "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article." CASalt (talk) 03:03, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

What spirit did the Danes leave?
So there is some incongruencies in different sources about which spirit the Danish side left there (all the sources seem to agree that the Canadians left whisky). Most English sources say the Danes leave "Schnapps" (business insider, NYT). Danish sources, however, consistently describe it as "snaps", which means akvavit, and is not the same as the English word "schnapps". (Extra Bladet, Berlingske, AAU). This incongruency could be explained as a mistranslation of snaps to schnapps. Schnapps in English refers to a drink that's not particularly popular in Denmark or characteristic, while snaps (akvavit) is the traditional Danish spirit. Well mystery solved, right? Wrong!

While looking through some more Danish articles, particularly the ones with direct quotations, it's significantly more muddy. Here a geologist who was present when the Danish minister left the note, refers the the spirit as a "cognac" and here a navy captain says: "It was previously such that, when the danes went to raise the danish flag, they left a bottle of Gammel Dansk" (a traditional Danish bitter).

So what's the conclusions? It seems nobody can agree what the Danish navy left for the canadians. Maybe it was different each time? Maybe it's partly a legend?

--94.147.56.119 (talk) 06:38, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Mystery maybe solved? Some newer articles in danish media have interviews with the former Greenland minister, where he says it was cognac (specifically remy martin). So I guess the inaugural beverage from the danish side was cognac. The soldiers afterwards probably put akvavit or gammel dansk, as those are more regular/characteristic types of danish liquor. 5.186.116.139 (talk) 08:44, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Timeline
Why is this event "In 1984, Canadian soldiers "provoked" Denmark by planting its flag on the island and leaving a bottle of Canadian whisky." not in the timeline? --Rcsmit (talk) 22:54, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Probably because no one has added it yet. WP:BOLD, if you have a reliable source for it being an event add it to the timeline. WanukeX (talk) 21:34, 28 July 2022 (UTC)