A History of the World in 6 Glasses P. 9-68

Summary:

A Stone-Age Brew:

50,000 years ago, human beings had to travel in small groups and lived in caves, huts, and if they're lucky, tents. To provide food supply, humans had to hunt and fish for anything they can get their hands on. But as time progresses, humans' lifestyle began to changed. Instead of hunting for food, people started to learn how to farm and grow crops. An advantage of be able to farm is that it's stable. Humans didn't have to move from one river to another forest. Since farming were spreading, this helped them to settle down into small villages which then grew into the world's very first cities. After having a stable place to live in, humans starts to invent and develop copious new useful items. Another genius "invention" was made during the change of their lifestyle. Instead of regular, good ol' water, humans realized that from barley and wheat, a new beverage can be made. Ever since this drink was made, it was essential and staple to social, religious, and economic life. Around 10,000 BCE, beer was discovered by humans. So, as the years passes by, humans created more beer flavors and even meanings of different kinds of beers for specific occasions.

Civilized Beer:

You can officially become a human after you consume bread and beer! Well, at least that's how it was back in 3400 BCE. Actually, the Mesopotamians believed that consuming bread and beer makes it easier for others to differentiate between humans and savages. Beer also played an important part in ancient Egyptian culture and time period which was in 2650 BCE. The Egyptians thought that beer had deep, spiritual, and mythological origins which is why they mentioned and/or have beer present during prayers, death ceremonies, and so forth. Both in Mesopotamia and Egypt, beer was consumed and liked by pretty much everyone, whether they're old or young, rich or poor, and male or female. Not only was beer used for drinking, it was also used for specific medical reasons. It was more safer to use beer than actual water because beer was less likely to be contaminated with any bacteria. Overall, having beers present during special occasions have brought many people altogether :]

The Delight in Wine:

Wine was really known and introduced during 870 BCE, to be more specific, King Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria's feast. He had roughly 69, 574 people that attended his feast. He provided copious food, plenty for everyone to eat. But the most astounding thing there was his choice of drink. He, himself had a bowl of wine instead of a cup of beer to show how much wealth he had. Wine was fairly expensive and difficult for an abundance of people to have, so them trying wine at the feast was the first for many. After trying wine for the first time, wine productions started to increase and wine was being transporting to more areas. Wine slowly made its way into human's life by making it more accessible. The Greek then added their own little touch to wine, by adding water to it. Because of the newly Greek way to drink wine, the water actually made the wine safer to drink, and vice versa. Even Greek philosophers thought that wine was a fabulous beverage and a good way to test a man's character.

Quote:

""Wine reveals what is hidden"" (Standage 62).

Reaction:

I chuckled when I saw this quote from a Greek philosopher in this chapter. :P I can relate to this quote because numerous of people have told stories about how they would get drunk and started spilling the truth about everything! I even witnessed an adult go on and on about something when he was drunk. It was quite entertaining to watch, haha. It seriously amazes me how someone that lived in the third century BCE made this statement and even in the modern times, it's still happening. I wonder what in particularly that's in wine, beer, and/or alcohol, in general, that makes a lot of people spit out the truth...hm :P