Last week, Anheuser-Busch announced a plan to sponsor research aboard the International Space Station to learn how to someday serve beer to astronauts on Mars. This is a dumb plan—not because beer is bad, or because astronauts responsible for settling the red planet won’t deserve a brewski at the end of a sol. It’s just, why beer? Distilled spirits—liquor—has always been a better fuel for exploration, or at least for explorers.

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