{"id":61245,"date":"2016-03-17T07:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T14:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=61245"},"modified":"2016-03-17T07:07:27","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T14:07:27","slug":"odd-things-made-by-monks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2016\/03\/17\/odd-things-made-by-monks\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Odd things you\u2019ll never believe were made by Monks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s post is a guest post by\u00a0Robin Armit who works for<\/span> Holy Art<\/a>, a company which sells all kinds of religious gifts. All religious items have a\u00a0wondrous\u00a0story to tell, and Robin enjoys telling\u00a0them…<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Brew\"It is common knowledge that monks and nuns have a long history of manufacturing\u00a0many different kinds of products. Production has traditionally been restricted to fairly standard items such as jams, sweets, beers, wine, and even some medicinal goods. Some monasteries are particularly famous for the quality of their products.\u00a0For example, Trappist monk beer is considered by many to be some of the best brew in the world.<\/p>\n

However, not all monasteries have restricted themselves to the more traditional products. Over the years, some monastic communities have\u00a0branched out into more unusual ventures.\u00a0For example, would you like to buy some modern cosmetics and skin care products? Perhaps you might want to learn how to ski?\u00a0Maybe you would like\u00a0to liven up an\u00a0evening with some tonic wine? While\u00a0I wouldn’t recommend\u00a0trying these all at the same time, but it might surprise you to know that Catholic monks can help you in each of these cases! In the article which follows you’ll learn more about these enterprising monks, as well as the products and services which\u00a0they supply.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Skiing monks (Austria)<\/h2>\n

Located in\u00a0the foothills of the Austrian Alps, a group of Cistercian monks<\/a> spend a portion of their time each day\u00a0imparting their skiing knowledge to all those who\u00a0enroll for classes. The school was originally set up as a way of improving the quality of Austrian skiing in the wake a huge medal deficit at the 1966 skiing world championships in Portillo, Chile. Skiing\u00a0is Austria\u2019s most popular sport and, naturally, such a poor showing of medals was seen as huge national\u00a0embarrassment. The Cistercian monks took it upon themselves to help reverse these fortunes.\u00a0Their mission was to train a new generation of young athletes who would go on to win medals for Austria.<\/p>\n

Their mission has certainly born much fruit. Since the opening of the school in 1967, the school\u2019s pupils have\u00a0gone on to win over two hundred\u00a0Olympic and World Championship medals. Although the monks still do some of the general teaching, they tend to be more involved behind-the-scenes of the school.<\/p>\n

Modern Cosmetics\u00a0(Italy)<\/h2>\n

To some people, this might come as less of a surprise, since over the centuries monasteries have been\u00a0very involved in growing herbs and plants for medicinal purposes. Nonetheless, aftershave, skin cream, hair\u00a0care products, and perfume are probably not the first things that come to mind when thinking of monks!<\/p>\n

These particular cosmetic products<\/a> are mostly produced by monastic orders of\u00a0Camaldolese monks in Italy and, once again, our good old friends the Trappists. Monastic products are often popular because they rely chiefly on natural ingredients and these cosmetics and skin-care products are no different, thus making them ideal for those with sensitive skin.<\/p>\n

Tonic wine (UK)<\/h2>\n

Our final\u00a0product may seem to be a surprising inclusion in this list. After all, there is nothing particularly odd about\u00a0monastic wine production:<\/p>\n

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, there\u2019s always laughter and good red wine. At least I\u2019ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!”<\/em> \u2013 Hilaire Belloc<\/span><\/p>\n

So although\u00a0love of wine is hardly abnormal\u00a0in the Catholic world,\u00a0Buckfast’s wine is a little unusual, which is why it merits inclusion in this list.<\/p>\n

As the name suggests, the concoction\u00a0comes from a community of Benedictine Monks in Devon based at the Buckfast Abbey<\/a>. Their first batch of the tonic wine was produced in 1890 based on a French recipe, and was originally sold as a\u00a0medicine. Nothing too unusual yet… However, one needs to understand is that Buckfast wine isn\u2019t normal wine. It is a fortified wine mixed with high levels of caffeine. In fact, some studies have even concluded\u00a0that Buckfast \u2013 drop for drop \u2013 contains more caffeine than Red Bull.<\/p>\n

So, although tonic wine might not be something you should drink in large\u00a0quantities, the\u00a0good people of Scotland (Glasgow in particular), have developed a particular penchant for this concoction over\u00a0the years. It is often said that a popular defense in court is: \u201cthe Bucky made me do it\u201d<\/span><\/em>…a defense\u00a0which usually fails! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I hope you enjoyed this list. Please let me know in the Comment Box\u00a0below of any weird and wonderful things that have been produced by monasteries in different parts of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s post is a guest post by\u00a0Robin Armit who works for Holy Art, a company which sells all kinds of religious gifts. All religious items have a\u00a0wondrous\u00a0story to tell, and Robin enjoys telling\u00a0them… It is common knowledge that monks and nuns have a long history of manufacturing\u00a0many different kinds of products. Production has traditionally been restricted to fairly standard items<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[3664,3669,3666,2969,1665,104,3665,3667,3668],"class_list":["post-61245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-austria","tag-buckfast-abbey","tag-cosmetics","tag-featured","tag-monastery","tag-monks","tag-skiing","tag-skin-care-products","tag-tonic-wine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/JollyMonks.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61245"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61294,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61245\/revisions\/61294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}