A brief history of alcohol - Rod Phillips

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Nobody knows exactly when humans began to create fermented beverages. The earliest known evidence comes from 7,000 BCE in China, where residue in clay pots has revealed that people were making an alcoholic beverage from fermented rice, millet, grapes, and honey. So how did alcohol come to fuel global trade and exploration? Rod Phillips explores the evolution of alcohol.

Lesson by Rod Phillips, directed by Anton Bogaty.

This chimpanzee stumbles across
a windfall of overripe plums.

Many of them have split open, drawing
him to their intoxicating fruity odor.

He gorges himself and begins
to experience some… strange effects.

This unwitting ape
has stumbled on a process

that humans will eventually harness

to create beer, wine,
and other alcoholic drinks.

The sugars in overripe fruit attract
microscopic organisms known as yeasts.

As the yeasts feed on the fruit sugars
they produce a compound called ethanol—

the type of alcohol
in alcoholic beverages.

This process is called fermentation.

Nobody knows exactly when humans
began to create fermented beverages.

The earliest known evidence
comes from 7,000 BCE in China,

where residue in clay pots

has revealed that people
were making an alcoholic beverage

from fermented rice, millet,
grapes, and honey.

Within a few thousand years,

cultures all over the world
were fermenting their own drinks.

Ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians
made beer throughout the year

from stored cereal grains.

This beer was available
to all social classes,

and workers even received it
in their daily rations.

They also made wine,

but because the climate wasn’t ideal
for growing grapes,

it was a rare and expensive delicacy.

By contrast, in Greece and Rome,
where grapes grew more easily,

wine was as readily available as
beer was in Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Because yeasts will ferment
basically any plant sugars,

ancient peoples made alcohol from whatever
crops and plants grew where they lived.

In South America, people made chicha
from grains,

sometimes adding hallucinogenic herbs.

In what’s now Mexico, pulque, made from
cactus sap, was the drink of choice,

while East Africans
made banana and palm beer.

And in the area that’s now Japan,
people made sake from rice.

Almost every region of the globe
had its own fermented drinks.

As alcohol consumption
became part of everyday life,

some authorities latched onto effects
they perceived as positive—

Greek physicians considered wine
to be good for health,

and poets testified
to its creative qualities.

Others were more concerned
about alcohol’s potential for abuse.

Greek philosophers promoted temperance.

Early Jewish and Christian writers
in Europe integrated wine into rituals

but considered excessive intoxication
a sin.

And in the middle east, Africa,
and Spain,

an Islamic rule against praying
while drunk gradually solidified

into a general ban on alcohol.

Ancient fermented beverages
had relatively low alcohol content.

At about 13% alcohol,

the by-products wild yeasts generate
during fermentation

become toxic and kill them.

When the yeasts die, fermentation stops
and the alcohol content levels off.

So for thousands of years,
alcohol content was limited.

That changed with the invention
of a process called distillation.

9th century Arabic writings describe
boiling fermented liquids

to vaporize the alcohol in them.

Alcohol boils at a lower temperature
than water, so it vaporizes first.

Capture this vapor, cool it down,
and what’s left is liquid alcohol

much more concentrated
than any fermented beverage.

At first, these stronger spirits
were used for medicinal purposes.

Then, spirits became an important
trade commodity because,

unlike beer and wine, they didn’t spoil.

Rum made from sugar harvested
in European colonies in the Caribbean

became a staple for sailors
and was traded to North America.

Europeans brought brandy
and gin to Africa

and traded it for enslaved people,
land, and goods like palm oil and rubber.

Spirits became a form
of money in these regions.

During the Age of Exploration,

spirits played a crucial role
in long distance sea voyages.

Sailing from Europe to east Asia
and the Americas could take months,

and keeping water fresh
for the crews was a challenge.

Adding a bucket of brandy
to a water barrel kept water fresh longer

because alcohol is a preservative
that kills harmful microbes.

So by the 1600s,

alcohol had gone from
simply giving animals a buzz

to fueling global trade and exploration—
along with all their consequences.

As time went on, its role in human
society would only get more complicated.