My wife is wondering why I’m shouting “10 bits! That’s 10 bits, you idiots!” at the computer.
To be fair, I have not been drinking for 7 straight hours. Yet.
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Okay, one can die, but only of their own accord. Or if both wear the wrong tartan. Okay three… Wait, this is turning into python 
️:upside_down_face:️:upside_down_face:
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Ten bits!? You monster!!
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But this assumes a certain risk model, with assumptions on what your outcomes should be.
If your outcome is to not die, dump all the wine.
If your outcome is to identify poisonous wine, your approach works well.
If your outcome is to unmask someone, change the labels.
If your outcome is a false flag, keep the labels, change the contents.
Or just drink your own wine, and let your guests do it themselves.
I should really, really stop talking.
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Yes. what you propose is a binary search algorithm:
It works but takes a lot longer.
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But then you don’t get to torture the would-be assassin to death over the course of hours interrogating him or her to find any accomplices.
You are a king
Cool, unlimited power.
The king has 10 prisoners he doesn’t mind killing.
Wow, I turned shitty fast.
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Realpolitik in an absolute monarchy, my friend. Presumably the 1,000 guests are all VIPs in the kingdom. If you make each of them taste their own wine, you risk offending 999 of them. (One is already presumably offended by the fact that you’re sitting on the throne.) Ditto if not one of them sees the wine they brought. The next time they come, they will probably bring a single keg of good wine, and a very sharp knife each hidden on their persons.
999 guests will very likely outnumber the guards at the reception - that’s where the knives come into play. The wine keg is for you, stuffed into it head first. Being an absolute monarch really is a fine balancing act, so quietly identifying the traitor is a good idea. 
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Take it from Vince, that can backfire badly…
That is a tough problem grizzled people like us solve.
Again, it comes down to the plan, and risk model.
Sometimes as king you get to ask yourself the question, “is my life, equally weighted, worth more than others?”
“Would poisoning people be a net benefit or detritriment to the realm?”
" Are my prisoners really worth so much less than me, I will risk physical torture on them?"
The mathematical answer is easy to derive. The others aren’t.
I tend to go with, serve my own wine, make silly jokes, (Hey, disarming people with kindness…), and lateral strategy.
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O(log2 n) is as efficient as it gets.
The king could invite everyone in the world to the party and only need to sacrifice 33 prisoners.
Granted they’d all die from each inbibing 4 billion drops of wine…
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Actually, from the sounds of it, the poison would be a relatively humane execution (and the surviving prisoners would have a rare treat). I use the term “relatively” advisedly - I have yet to hear of an absolute monarchy that lacked a death penalty (or political prisoners, for that matter - @anon61221983?). Won’t say that I approve (that’s why I like constitutional monarchies), but it is almost undoubtedly a necessity of this particular form of government: the monarch’s position is upheld by a combination of “I’m taking an awful risk if I plot against His Majesty,” and “I maintain my position because of the status quo” - a combination of carrot and stick, so to speak.
The monarch, however, had better have a good grasp of this, both the carrot and the stick, and a proper paranoia: assassination is bad for the stability of the kingdom. So yes, failing a Caligula on the throne, the monarch’s life is worth more than the others because of the effect that an assassination would have on the kingdom’s people.
Now, if, as an absolute monarch, you want to move the kingdom to a form of government at once more just and less dependent on bloody changes of regime, then yes, you probably want to work with a lot of lateral strategy, because you definitely don’t want to give the sharks in the country an impression of weakness.
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“Tonight, We drink beer!” 
Four words, job done, no deaths. 
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And this is why I’ll always be a beaucrat, or technocrat. Never a leader. And even though that’s where I want to move, one has to acknowledge their strengths.
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I tend more eminence grise - not enough charisma to be Glorious Leader, and a little hard for most people to understand. However, too much of a troubleshooter to be a proper functionary.
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Francis!
Under the puzzle’s constraints, you’d have to either open the bottles three days early (and, I suppose, pay to replace all of them), or you wouldn’t have enough time.
Though, I suppose, if your cost/benefit analysis doesn’t support your own life vs. a thousand bottles of wine (and the possible chance of being seen as a cheapskate based on your choice of vintage), then you’re not destined to be king for long…
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without further restrictions, I think the simplest way to fulfill all requirements is to tell the prisoners they can drink all the wine if they machinegun everyone at the party. (but they have to give the guns back)
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OK, so each guest drinks the bottle of wine from the previous guest. The first person to arrive gets a guaranteed poison free bottle from the king’s wine cellar.
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Ah OK, the article text was saying one hour. I just watched the video - 2 days latency in a 3 day lead-up definitely makes a difference. The solution they give is certainly constant time, although a bit more fussy in the bookkeeping department than decimation (which, however, would take twice as long as the deadline).
