Ancient Corn Has Been Compared to Dry, Raw Potatoes

Corn's ancient ancestor was teosinte, a grasslike plant that grew kernels in small, tough shells. Cobs weren’t peeled like they are today; the outer shells had to be hammered open, and the kernels are said to have had a starchy texture that resembled dry, raw potatoes. The transformation from teosinte to modern corn was a triumph of selective breeding by Indigenous communities in Mesoamerica. Researchers believe corn was first domesticated around 6,000 to 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River Valley of southern Mexico. Over time, the vegetable was cultivated to be much longer and have bigger kernels, a softer outer layer, and, of course, more sugar content, resulting in the golden sweet corn that’s now a staple crop around the world.

Peaches Used to Be Harder and Less Sweet

This popular tree fruit is beloved for its sweet, juicy profile, but it once had hardly any flesh — and what it did have was less juicy with a more earthy taste. Peaches originated in China; fossils indicate that they even predated humans. Originally, wild peaches were greenish and much smaller. The pit took up most of the space, the skin was waxy, and they had 4% less sugar than today’s varieties. Over time, peach cultivation traversed continents and cultures, each refining its best traits to give us the fuzzy, rosy treat we love today.

Bananas Were Once Nearly Inedible

Bananas are easy to peel, nutritious, and sweet, but in their original incarnation they were tougher, stockier, and full of hard, black seeds. In fact, instead of the banana itself, people once ate the tree’s flowers or shoots. There are now more than 1,000 banana varieties, but the one we’re most familiar with is the Cavendish banana. It was named after English nobleman William Spencer Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire. Though researchers have traced the domesticated banana’s origins to Papua New Guinea, the Brits were key figures in the variety’s cultivation into the banana found in most grocery stores year-round.

Champagne Pioneer Dom Pérignon Was a Benedictine Monk

Though he’s best known today for being the namesake of a famous fancy Champagne brand, Dom Pérignon was once a humble Benedictine monk living in 17th-century France. Pérignon was born in 1638 in France’s Champagne region, and though some sources erroneously credit him with inventing sparkling wine, he undoubtedly helped improve its production methods while living at the Abbey of Hautvillers. Pérignon made his way to the monastery in 1668, and at the time, Champagne’s wines were deemed inferior in color, quality, and flavor to products from the more popular wine regions of Burgundy and Bordeaux. 

Pérignon worked to improve the region’s winemaking reputation — he invented a press to make clear wine from dark grapes, and reintroduced corks as reliable seals for bottles. Ultimately, however, it was Pérignon’s work on a process known as “méthode champenoise” (roughly translating to “the Champagne method”) that solidified his legend. He sought to better understand how the region’s cold weather impacted wine, and how the buildup of carbon dioxide caused certain bottles to explode. Pérignon went on to produce fizzy wines that the French were initially less fond of, but proved to be extremely popular with his English customers.

George Washington Ran a Successful Whiskey Distillery

The history of whiskey long predates the United States, as the first written record of any whiskey liquor dates back to 1324 in a medieval manuscript known as the Red Book of Ossory from Kilkenny, Ireland. Over the next several centuries, the liquor expanded internationally, becoming one of the most popular alcohols in America. In 1797, one very famous American opened up a whiskey distillery of his own: the first President of the United States, George Washington. 

After stepping down from the presidency earlier that year, Washington was encouraged by his plantation manager James Anderson to use the vast expanse of his Mount Vernon estate to open a whiskey distillery. Anderson believed doing so would be a wildly profitable endeavor, and he was right. A stone house large enough to contain five whiskey stills was built on the founding father’s estate in October 1797, and by 1799 the distillery was producing nearly 11,000 gallons of the liquor. That’s a sizable chunk larger than the 650 gallons produced on average by other Virginia-based distilleries at the time, making Washington’s distillery among the largest in the nation. Mount Vernon produced whiskeys flavored with additives such as cinnamon, not to mention some apple and peach brandies as well. The distillery forwent the bottling process, instead delivering the drink to local merchants in 31-gallon wooden barrels. Unfortunately, Washington passed away in 1799 right as the business reached its apex, and the distillery ceased operations shortly thereafter.

American Doctors Prescribed Alcohol During Prohibition

From 1920 to 1933, the manufacturing and sale of alcohol was strictly forbidden in the United States — except in the world of medicine. With Americans desperate to acquire libations by any means necessary, a clever workaround was devised by the medical industry. During Prohibition, the U.S. Treasury Department authorized doctors to write prescriptions for alcohol, which in turn led to liquor being prescribed as a “cure” for ailments ranging from indigestion to cancer. 

These boozy prescriptions cost around $7 (roughly a little over $100 today), half of which was paid to the doctor to write the prescription, with the rest going toward actually acquiring the medicinal pint. Even British statesman Winston Churchill took advantage of this loophole, acquiring a doctor’s note for alcohol use during a visit to America in 1932. His doctor Otto C. Pickhardt wrote, “Churchill necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times,” allowing the Brit to skirt past America’s Prohibition laws and imbibe as he pleased. The prescriptions proved to be a massive moneymaker for the medical industry before Prohibition was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment.

What’s So Old-Fashioned About an Old Fashioned?

The old fashioned whiskey cocktail, usually referred to as just an old fashioned, is considered by many mixology experts to be the original cocktail. In fact, the 1806 definition of a “cock tail” is the basic recipe for an old fashioned, minus the orange peel, which came later. In the late 18th century, when imported wine was expensive in the U.S., domestic rye whiskey became the drink of choice, and its harsh taste could be mellowed with the addition of water, sugar, and bitters. The simple recipe was designed to make low-quality whiskey tastier. Of course, this predecessor of the modern cocktail didn’t get its name until decades after its creation. As new versions of the whiskey cocktail (and other mixed drinks) became popular, it’s likely that bartenders and enthusiasts of the original version would make the distinction by referring to the “old-fashioned” recipe.

The Golden Age of Cocktails

Starting around the middle of the 19th century, Americans fell in love with cocktails. During this “golden age” — which lasted until Prohibition began in 1920 — a number of mixology guides were published, most of them written by well-known bartenders who worked in popular clubs and hotels. These celebrity bartenders had fans and rivals and turned mixology into a form of entertainment. “Professor” Jerry Thomas, as he was known, is considered the “father of American mixology” and was the first mixologist to take an oral tradition and put it in writing. His book, How to Mix Drinks: Or, the Bon-Vivant’s Companion, was first published in 1862 andincluded directions for mixing over 600 drinks, many of them acquired on Thomas’ travels through Europe and America. The result was a compilation of traditional and obscure cocktails, including the Philadelphia fish-house punch, Baltimore eggnog,  Italian lemonade, as well as Thomas’ own signature creations, such as his flaming Scotch cocktail, the blue blazer.

Shaken, Not Stirred

Prohibition may have ended the golden age of cocktails, but the popularity of mixed drinks has shown staying power. Cocktails remained popular in various forms ever since, from the speakeasies and cocktail parties of the Prohibition era, to the tiki bars of the 1940s and '50s, to the three-martini lunches of the '60s. A decline occurred in the late '60s and '70s, followed by a resurgence beginning in the 1990s. Modern pop culture icons such as James Bond, Carrie Bradshaw, and Don Draper have helped immortalize their favorite drinks (a vodka martini, cosmopolitan, and old fashioned, respectively), and savvy restaurateurs have reinvented Prohibition-era speakeasies. On social media, celebrity mixologists and “cocktail influencers” introduce the next generation of cocktail enthusiasts to exciting new trends, such as extreme beverages that burn, cool, or tingle, contemporary twists on the classics, and inspired mocktails that bring all the flavor without any of the booze. Shaken or stirred, frosty or aflame, cocktail culture endures.