ALCOHOL: A SHORT
HISTORY
Fermented grain,fruit juice and honey have
been used to make alcohol (ethyl alcohol or ethanol) for thousands of years.
Fermented beverages existed in early Egyptian
civilization, and there is evidence of an early alcoholic drink in China around
7000 B.C. In India, an alcoholic
beverage called sura, distilled from rice, was in use between 3000 and 2000 B.C.
The Babylonians worshiped a wine goddess as
early as 2700 B.C. In
Greece, one of the first alcoholic beverages to gain popularity was mead, a
fermented drink made from honey and water. Greek literature is full of warnings
against excessive drinking.
Several Native American civilizations
developed alcoholic beverages in pre-Columbian times. A variety of fermented
beverages from the Andes region of South America were created from corn, grapes
or apples, called “chicha.”
In the sixteenth century, alcohol (called
“spirits”) was used largely for medicinal purposes. At the beginning of the
eighteenth century, the British parliament passed a law encouraging the
use of grain for distilling spirits. Cheap spirits flooded the market and
reached a peak in the mid-eighteenth century. In Britain, gin consumption
reached 18 million gallons and alcoholism became widespread.
The nineteenth century brought a change in
attitudes and the temperance movement began promoting the moderate use of
alcohol—which ultimately became a push for total prohibition.
