5 Dizzying Facts About the History of Alcohol
From gastropubs to college campuses, alcohol is present wherever people socialize. But liquor, beer, and wine didn’t just pop up overnight. These libations have a rich history dating back millennia. In fact, alcoholic beverages even predate many ancient civilizations — the earliest known fermented drinks date back as far as 13,000 years ago, when a beer-like porridge was brewed in a cave near modern-day Haifa, Israel.
In the many centuries since, booze has played a pivotal role in countless cultures. It’s been used as currency, cultivated in monasteries, and even distilled by America’s first President. So grab your favorite cocktail and keep reading for five facts about the history of alcohol.
Grape-Based Wines Originated in Modern-Day Georgia Around 6000 BCE
The winemaking industry as we know it began more than 8,000 years ago, with a group of farmers in a region of the South Caucasus now home to the country of Georgia. It wasn’t France or Italy that first turned grapes into wine, but rather residents of an ancient site known as Gadachrili Gora, a Stone Age village just south of modern-day Tbilisi. Archaeological excavations uncovered pottery fragments dating to the Neolithic period that contain residual wine compounds such as grape pollen and starch. These large vessels — early versions of a popular Georgian wine vessel known as a Qvevri — were decorated with depictions of grapes, further suggesting their use in winemaking. It’s believed the vessels were used for fermentation, aging, and serving all in one.
Ancient Egyptian Workers Were Paid in Beer
The ancient Sumerian people of Mesopotamia (near modern-day Iraq) created the first recorded evidence of barley beer around the year 3400 BCE (though beer likely dates back thousands of years earlier). In the centuries that followed, these early and popular beer-like beverages sprung up throughout the region. Few cultures at the time loved a brew to the degree of the ancient Egyptians, however; they treated the beverage as a key component of their everyday diet, as many meals consisted of just beer and bread. Wine was also popular in Egypt at the time, though it was often reserved for members of upper-class society, making beer more popular among those in the working class. Workers along the Nile River were even paid with an allotment of beer, as it was considered safer to drink than water from the polluted river. These libations were often flavored with additives such as dates and olive oil, only adding to their deliciousness at the time.
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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.
