Odavinetics, or the Creation of Booze
This column is by no means an advertisement for alcoholic drinks. We talk about history, traditions and peculiarities. It is as valid a way of understanding the world and the past as archaeology or archaeogenetics. Hence the name: Odavinetics.
Today — about how alcohol was made. And how ancient this story is.
The Neolithic: the first sips
Here and there around the world, stone vessels are found with residues of fermented drinks. They are dated to the Neolithic — the New Stone Age. However, since peoples developed at different paces, this fact gives no exact information about the antiquity of Homo Tipplens.
More or less coherent data came from vessels found in a Neolithic settlement on the Yellow River (Huang He) in China. Chemical analysis of fermentation traces says that around 7–6.5 thousand years BC local craftsmen were mixing up an alcoholic drink from fruit, herbs, honey and rice flour. And with a unique technology: they used grain malting and a fermentation starter (qu) at the same time, which let them produce both “rice beer” and more complex fruit-and-honey drinks. Archaeological data (ceramics, microfossils) confirm the continuity of this practice from 10,000 BC to the late Neolithic.
Around the same time — and certainly no later than 5 thousand years BC — barley beer was brewed in Mesopotamia. Women (and only women) ground barley into a paste. Separately they baked spiced loaves — bappir, a special bread for the starter. These too were ground to dust, mixed with water and grains. Put in a warm place. The resulting cloudy sludge was drunk through straws. Later they came up with adding malt and learned to filter.
Grapes and wine: the countercultural grandfather
In parallel, no less than 6 thousand years BC, Homo Tipplens mastered viticulture. The homeland of grape cultivation is the areas of the Transcaucasus, Eastern Anatolia and the Zagros mountain range. That is also where the grandfather of the modern Vitis vinifera — the cultivated grape — appeared.
A countercultural grandfather, one must assume.
At Hajji Firuz Tepe, an archaeological site in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, vessels of about 9 liters were found with residues of what was clearly grape wine. The settlement was inhabited, mind you, around 7 thousand years BC. The find is dated to 5.4–5 thousand years BC — which points to the antiquity of wine in general and of alcoholism in particular.
India: goddesses of intoxication
Ancient India lagged somewhat in this matter. Still, as early as 3–2 thousand years BC they made sura — a mixture of grains and fruit, an analogue of beer. Incidentally, Sura in ancient Indian mythology is a goddess. Guess of what. Yes indeed: the goddess of intoxication. She was contrasted with Varuni — also a drink, also made of honey, also a goddess of intoxication.
Both drinks were ritual ones. But sura was quite often spoken of in a negative light, as a manifestation of evil. On the other hand, it was specified: in moderation the drink serves as medicine, in excess — as poison. Another participant is soma, also ritual. Soma and sura must never, under any circumstances, be mixed.
Mesopotamia: beer as religion
Let us return to the Sumerians. They believed that Enki and Ninmah, who created the first people, were dead drunk, having overdone the beer at a feast. That is why people are so imperfect. Which is hard to disagree with.
Babylonia had the famous Code of Hammurabi, in which as many as four laws are devoted to alcohol. But on matters of trade and tavern rules — no dosage limits at all. The Sumerians, Babylonians and Akkadians used alcohol as medicine, as a way to restore strength and, naturally, as an offering to the gods.
Egypt: beer for gods and men
The Egyptians brewed strong sweet beer — for nourishment, medicine, rewards, funerary purposes and offerings to the gods. So as not to have to get up once more.
The oldest Egyptian brewery found, at Hierakonpolis (also known as Nekhen), dates to 3.4 thousand years BC. The patron of that city is Osiris, by the way.
Greece: moderation and Dionysus
The ancient Greeks were moderate fellows in everything. Especially when it came to work, but not when it came to male love. They drank wine in moderation, diluting it with water. Those who drank it undiluted were considered barbarians. Although those who did not drink at all were too.
To get properly sloshed, people went off to the Dionysians — the followers of Dionysus. The drunker the adherent, the closer to the deity he was considered. However, wine drinking was regarded as an exclusively male pastime: the lads gathered separately and got plastered. That was the accepted way for men to spend time. Yeah, sure.
Hippocrates considered wine a medicine. It was the Greeks who began sealing wine and aging it for several years. Herbs, and even ash, were added to the amphora — the beginning of preservation. Wine was preceded by fermented honey.
Rome: the democracy of wine
It is not without reason that the Romans are said to have borrowed everything from the Greeks. There was a joke among the Greeks that the Romans had borrowed even sex from them. To which the Romans replied that yes, they had — but added women to it.
So, the Romans diluted their wine too, but democratically gave access to all layers of the population. Even slaves and gladiators. And women, of course. But beer they despised, considering it a barbarian drink.
The Americas: pulque and mandibles
Mesoamerican pulque can beat all the ancient drinks with one hand tied behind its back. Agave was prepared in the most ancient times. And even older is mead made from the honey of Melipona bees. Balché, as the Maya called the drink.
Melipona are bees that defend themselves not with a sting but with jaws. Mandibles, scientifically speaking. The word alone is enough to make you soil yourself. Imagine: a beekeeper comes to the hives, and there sits a Melipona clicking its mandibles. No wonder they were worshipped. The drink was considered medicinal and was offered in sacrifice to the gods.
The Middle Ages: alcohol as water
In the Middle Ages alcohol saved people from a host of ailments. Drinking plain water was not just unsafe — it was deadly. Especially in cities that had never heard of sewers.
But drinks were distributed by class. Monks and church servants indulged in beer or grape wine that they made themselves. The nobility drank wine too. Common folk — cider and apple wines. Strong spirits became the property of seafarers: they survived a long voyage, unlike the rotten water in barrels. Alcohol was used as an energy drink for heavy labor.
There were the vagantes — the punks of the Middle Ages. Creative people who composed songs and prose. Tippling, they challenged society.
Distillation: the woman who changed everything
Alexander of Aphrodisias was a sane commentator on Aristotle, with a heap of followers. He demolished the Stoics and started a centuries-long discussion about logic. Compare that with Facebook pundits — at least he wrote competently. Though in Ancient Greek.
So, this fellow described the process of distillation even before the word itself existed. The distillation of liquids was known to Greek alchemists as early as the 1st–2nd century AD. Although technological experiments with distillation in Mesopotamia were already under way around 2000 BC, practical application to strong drinks began only in the 1st–7th centuries AD. And he, it seems, took his information from Aristotle, who described purifying seawater by evaporation.
And I can even say more. The first still was invented by a woman. Chauvinists, faint away.
Maria the Jewess (Maria Prophetissa, also called Maria of Kopt), an alchemist, scholar and simply a clever woman of the 1st–3rd century AD, connected two hollow vessels with a tube. The liquid in the first vessel was heated, then cooled and drawn off. The system was refined and improved. Traditionally, the full-fledged still is attributed to the Arab alchemists of the 8th–9th century AD.
And from there it all took off — whisky, cognac, vodka, aquavit, okovita, brandy, grappa…
But that is another story altogether.