Alcohol is one of the longest-used products in human history, has been used as a currency by many civilizations, and is an ingredient for 3 of the 10 most consumed beverages. To stay in the ‘spirit’ of things ,let's think about it .

1. Invention of Alcohol
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Adarsh yadav
Alcohol is one of the longest-used products in human history, has been used as a
currency
by many civilizations, and is an ingredient for 3 of the 10 most consumed beverages.
To stay in the ‘spirit’ of things ,let's think about it .
Hey!
We don’t know when people first consumed alcohol.But we do know we weren’t the
first.
There are many species who have evolved defense mechanisms against alcohol. Bats in
Latin America eat fermented fruits with ease, certain species of bees don’t allow drunk
bees to return to their hive, while the pen-tailed tree shrew spends 2 hours every day
drinking fermented palm nectar without getting drunk. Because fermentation is a
common natural process, we cannot be certain when humans first consumed alcohol.
The best guesses of scientists point out that humans likely figured out fruits ferment
when held in some sort of container and could be consumed for a light buzz. In fact, the
very first evidence of humans intentionally creating alcohol comes from China, at around
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2. 7.000 BC. Researchers analysed the chemical composition of a jar and found a
concoction of fermented rice, honey, and hawthorn leafs, which was likely an intentional
method to create wine.
Whether wine making spread from China or was invented independently elsewhere we
don’t
know.
But we do know that 1.000 years later the first grapevines were cultivated in the
caucasus. By the year 4.000 BCE, Mesopotamia created a thriving wine making industry.
But so far every alcoholic drink came from fermented fruits.This is how wine is
made.what is wine linked mentioned.
But in Mesopotamia people learned of a new method to create alcohol.
They put grain in hot water, which over the course of a few hours added alcohol to the
Liquid. And so the first beer was created, which is fermented grains rather than
fermented fruit.
So let’s raise our cup to the very first beer in history. And while the knowledge of wine
production took 1.000s of years to mature into an industry with vineyards and
professional winemakers, beer took only about 500 years to create the very first brewery.
This was in Egypt, in Hierakonpolis, producing about 1.100 litre of beer every day.
And it’s ancient Egypt that we get the first writings on how they used alcohol.
Some things are different.
For example, beer was used as payment and to quench thirst. This was in a time before
modern sanitation, meaning water was far more likely to be polluted than beer and beer
only had around 1% alcohol at the time. But there are also a lot of things that haven’t
changed. It is used recreational during festivals and feasts, as a social lubricant to help
people opened up, and played an important role in various religious rituals.
Over time beer became as important to the Babylonians in the middle east as it was to
Egypt. In Babylon the first laws concerning alcohol were laid down in the Code of
Hammurabi…
but rather than talking about the consumption of alcohol, it only addressed the fair
commerce
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3. of alcohol. And the Egyptians and middle easterners exported their wine and beer across
the Mediterranean Sea and to India.
In India people found a third way of making alcoholic beverages.
In 1.700 BC people discovered how to ferment honey and turn it into a drink.
And so let's raise our flagon to another dead dragon because there is just one drink you
need: Mead. Mead Making became especially popular in colder regions, Such as Nepal,
Central Europe, Russia. This was because keeping bees was usually easier than
harvesting enough grain or fruits. And around this time India made another major
scientific discovery in the field of alcohol: distillation. You see, when yeast converts
sugars or carbohydrates into alcohol it can only naturally do so up to a point. But with
distillation this alcohol could be extracted, allowing a higher % of alcohol in people’s
drinks. And so India created the first liquor.
While today liquor means that it contains at least 15% alcohol, back then the technology
only allowed a few percentage points of alcohol. While the rest of the world drank mead,
beer, and wine, China shifted towards drinking Huangjiu, which is a type of rice wine…
China… How could you? But it actually makes sense as Rice cultivation allows you to
produce a lot more calories than with other types of grains. And this type of drink has
remained popular with the Chinese all the way to today. Back in the west, Rome rose to
prominence.They figured out how to make wine ‘age’ and constructed vineyards across
their empire.
They considered wine to be ‘democratic’, because it was consumed by all the people:
from the highest noble to the lowest slave, man and woman, peasant and aristocrat.
It was such an important product that when Rome’s borders expanded, so too had the
wine trade to provide all the Roman soldiers and colonists with sufficient wine.
While the Romans had access to beer, they preferred wine.
In fact, Romans liked their wine so much that they often noted disparagingly that the
Germanic
people liked to drink beer… In that regard nothing has really changed…
When the middle ages rolled around, Middle-Eastern scientists improved upon the
distillation
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4. process by inventing the distillation still. This allowed people to get higher percentages of
alcohol out of their distillation process. And most importantly, they discovered ethanol.
Ethanol is the alcoholic chemical which makes people drunk. But while many inventions
into alcoholic beverages originated in the middle east, it’s also the place where Islam
rooted itself.
With Islam came a negative view on consuming alcohol, leading to its prohibition.
And such controls of alcohol by states and religions is quite common throughout history.
In the 20th century the USA tried to prohibit the production of alcohol, while the USSR
tried to limit the sale of alcohol. And while it’s often thought of as a very modern thing
for governments to do, it’s actually a very old practice.
As Chinese commentator nearly 2.700 years ago said people “will not do without beer.
To prohibit it and secure total abstinence from it is beyond the power even of sages.
Hence, therefore, we have warnings on the abuse of it.`` And this commentator was
right.
Throughout history there have been thousands of cases of governments and religions
trying
to control alcohol sales or production. While many Islamic societies ban the substance,
ancient Egypt worshiped Osiris, the god of beer, among other matters. But Roman
Catholicism, however, believes that wine can literally turn into the blood of their god and
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5. has often joined prohibition movements. So far such bans either don’t have enough data
to make a conclusion, or they are failures: People will produce or import alcohol illegally.
In the USA and USSR people brewed their own alcohol, which were of low quality,
causing
permanent damage to its drinkers… all of which could have been avoided if they had
opened a few history books, making this a great example of why learning history is
important.
By the 15th century the process of distillation finally allowed for proper liquor to be
produced.
And with higher alcohol content came the introduction of new types of drinks.
Too many to mention all at once, but to give a few examples are whiskey, which is a
distilled
alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash; Brandy, which is distilled wine;
and
gin, which is distilled juniper wine. And gin actually has an interesting history: It was
originally called ‘jenever’ in Dutch, but the English pronounced it Geneva, and when it
reached France the people shortened it to just ‘gin’. By 1743 England produced 18 million
gallons of gin per year.
In the early 19th century British soldiers in India drank their malaria medicine in tonic
water. But this was bitter. So soldiers added water, sugar, and lime to improve the taste.
And thus, gin and tonic was born. While Afroeurasia was inventing more and more new
types of alcoholic drinks, it is important that we don’t forget the Americas either.
Unfortunately, we don’t have as detailed a history of the Americas.
We do know that the production of Alcohol probably never reached further north than
where the South of the USA is today. Meaning millions of people had no idea alcohol
even existed until the European arrived. But when the European did arrive, the native
Americans gladly traded European alcoholic drinks for local resources. In Central
America people have made wine out of cocoa since at least 1.100 BCE, mead made from
local honey, and even beer made from corn. They also had their own unique type of
alcoholic drink called Pulque, which is white and has a sour yeast-like taste. Which you
can still buy today if you want to.
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6. The Europeans soon colonized the Americas and started harvesting sugarcane using
slave
labor. Some of those slaves discovered that molasses, a byproduct of the sugar refining
process, could be fermented into alcohol.
Eventually someone added distillation to this process and created the very first modern
rum. Ironically, this made the slave trade even worse as sugar was now even more
profitable
to produce.
Over time rum came to be associated with piracy as many privateers in the Caribbean
started
trading in rum. When rum overtook brandy as the most traded alcoholic beverage in the
Caribbean, sailors were starting to get paid in rum. When those privateers became
pirates, their fondness of rum remained. And so the association between rum and piracy
was established.
In the 19th century the industrial revolution changed the lives of people in a significant
way. More factories were being built, meaning a lot of people were needed to man the
machines, this in turn meant that a lot of people started living in cities. Society at the
time wasn't prepared to deal with this urbanization. Long workdays, few vacations,
people packed into cities filled with disease... At the same time those same people
started forming a middle class.
And so with more problems and more money, many people found escape from their
new harsh
reality in alcohol. But rather than dealing with the underlying problems industrialization
was creating, many organisations simply blamed alcohol.
High crime rates, poverty, disease... they were all blamed on alcohol. And in a world
where people don't have a proper grasp on sociology, economics, and biology
it's easy to come to this conclusion. But as alcohol seemed to cause more problems,
scientists started using all the new technologies of industrialization to understand exactly
what alcohol was.
What is it made of?
How is it created?
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7. What effects does it have on people?
Louis Pasteur discovered the connection with microscopic yeast cells and the
fermentation
process. He discovered yeast cells convert sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, which
he discovered in the 1850s. But he didn’t discover the mechanism itself.
Various scientists would add to this work over the next 100 years, figuring out the
exact process of turning sugar into alcohol. A process which is far too complicated for me
to explain in a history artical , so if you want , comment to me i'll make a separate blog
on that. just like my what ia wine blog where i have explained the structure of wine ..
But by 1940 the process was finally understood and was named the Embden–Meyerhof–
Parnas
pathway...
So humans only understand how alcohol is created for less than a century.
As our technology improved and humans gained access to more safe drinks, people
moved away from alcohol. Coffee, tea, and water replaced alcoholic beverages. And
with this societal change and scientific understanding, humans started treating alcohol
very differently now that it wasn’t needed anymore.
For example, while in the past we used very broad rules such as “moderation”, today
we have more specific rules such as specific limits on alcohol consumption while driving
a vehicle, limiting the sale of alcohol for certain ages, and putting safety labels on
products. And as our understanding of psychology increased, we came to understand
the underlying reasons for alcohol abuse.
So now we have support groups for people who get addicted, finally giving humanity a
tool
to combat the negative effects of alcohol. And for those of us who don’t have issues with
it, we now know that alcohol also causes various positive effects such reduced chances
of coronary heart disease, osteoporosis, and increases longevity.
And remember; don't drink and drive.
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