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Alcoholic Beverages

Humankind has had a long history of using plants and weeds for their intoxicant, medicinal or social properties. Throughout the world and through the ages, plants have been smoked, chewed, applied on, or ingested, and their use has been accompanied often by elaborate social and religious rituals. As Mark Twain once declared (perhaps tongue in cheek): "to cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did; I ought to know because I have done it a thousand times".

Drinking is shared by groups of people around the world involved in alcoholic beverages. Although the type of alcohol, social attitude toward (and acceptance of) drinking varies around the world, nearly every civilization has independently discovered the process of brewing beer, fermenting wine or distilling liquor. Alcohol and its effects have been present wherever people have lived throughout history. Drinking is documented in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, Greek literature as old as Homer, and Confucius' Analects. Given its continuing popularity and the failure of alcohol Prohibitions, drinking may remain a part of human life interminably.

In I Timothy, Paul advises his young disciple: “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and for thine often [i.e., common] infirmities.” It might amuse Paul to learn that after nearly two thousand years the United States government finally agrees with him. In its most recently issued guidelines for nutrition, the federal government acknowledged that a modest intake of alcohol is not harmful and might even have benefits for the heart.

At the risk of touching off another conflagration between Union and Confederacy, I have to admit that the mint julep, a libation that on its home turf is more hotly debated and glorified than proper barbecue, more often than not fails to please, and for some fairly obvious reasons. The problem comes in its lack of balance. To take bourbon, which is by nature the sweetest whiskey—distilled, as it is by law, from a mash consisting of at least 51 percent corn—and combine it simply with sugar or sugar syrup and mint leaves, depending on which of the dozens of vociferously defended recipes you follow, is setting up a tripod with a missing leg, as it were. Most great cocktails consist of an alcohol blended with a sweetener and something sour or bitter, for balance. I have chanced across heretical recipes that add a couple of drops of Peychaud’s bitters, but rounding the drink out properly with some type of citrus or other juice would prove a sacrilege that would have purists screaming murder. I love bourbon and I love mint, but the thought of downing a tall julep, with all that alcohol and all that unmitigated sugar, makes my mouth thick and brings on reflections of hangovers sure to come.

Here, then, is roughly the same thing, done to an unimprovable turn yet largely ignored in the current boom of cocktail culture. Could it be simply the dowdiness of its moniker that causes the Old-Fashioned to be trampled underfoot in the heavy traffic of the younger drinker? One thinks invariably of a favorite aunt or of Grandpa’s hunting buddies downing a few over cards. It is aptly named, being as direct a descendant as we can tell from what may be the first real American cocktail. When bitters and vermouth began entering the American market in the early nineteenth century, they immediately changed the way people took their drinks, opening up the practice of mixing cocktails. Jerry Thomas, author of the first recipe book of American cocktails, cites an early version of the Old-Fashioned as simply whiskey, bitters, sugar, and water with a bit of lemon garnish. The drink evolved to include a wedge of orange and a cherry, all muddled with the sugar to release their aromatics, atop which the whiskey—rye makes a slightly grippier version than bourbon—and ice are added. There is also a school that gives it a goose of seltzer. The bitters and citrus balance the sweetness and allow a lyrical interplay with the hooch. If it got a PR makeover and were renamed the Old-School, you might see a serious spike in interest in this erstwhile star. But then, cocktails don’t care who drinks them, and what’s better than having an intriguing, history-drenched ace in the hole to pull out when everyone else in your party is ordering a vodka and tonic?

Drinkers Kieth Moon The history of rock is full of liquored-up rabblerousers, but few were as depraved as the Who's drummer, who left a trail of crashed cars, smashed drum kits, and trashed hotel rooms in his wake. Blackbeard When he wasn't out raping, pillaging, and burying treasure, the notoriously ferocious Caribbean pirate was famous for mixing his rum with gunpowder, setting it aflame, and pounding it back. Barney For many of us, the resident barfly at Moe's Tavern typifies the lush life, a man so beholden to the bottle that he's been known to drink varnish, brake fluid, and turpentine. Winston Churchill The British Bulldog drank his way through W WII, starting everyday with a whiskey, before moving on to a stream of champagne, brandy, martinis, and more. Hitler, in contrast, was a teetotaler. Dylan Thomas Coiner of the drinker's axiom, "An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you," Thomas died after downing 18 straight whiskeys at New York's White Horse Tavern. Oliver Reed Renowned for his hard drinking, the English thespian died while filming Gladiator, having reportedly guzzled three bottles of rum, eight bottles of beer, and many double whiskeys.

A Brief History Of Booze

Cavemen brew a beerlike substance, evidenced by cave drawings of beer like substance pong in 10,000 B.C. In 7000 B.C. wine production begins in China. It's good stuff, but you feel sober an hour later. Years after the flood, Noah gets wasted and strips to his birthday suit, confirming that he did bring two of everything in 2304 B.C. In 2000 B.C. booze takes root in Greece. Bacchanalia is born 1,000 years later, and young boys start looking kinda good. The supposedly immortal Alexander the Great croaks at age 32 after drinking just a bit too much at a party in 323 B.C. In 200 A.D. Pulque, a precursor of tequila, gains popularity in Mesoamerica. What good is human sacrifice without body shots?

In 800 A.D. alcohol is first distilled by Muslim chemists. Woo-hoo! The hard stuff is finally here! At the Battle of Hastings, Norman invaders conquer the Saxons, who lost in part because they were so damned drunk in 1066. In 1405 the first written record of whiskey is scribbled in Ireland, on a bar napkin. The Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock, bearing more beer than water. That's why they wore belt buckles on their hats in 1620. In 1650 gin is invented in Holland. Soon after, a drunk dude decides that wood would make for super-comfortable footwear. European settlers in the West Indies begin distilling sugarcane into rum.

The first rum distillery opens in Boston, and thus Beantown's rich tradition of responsible drinking is born in 1657. In 1743 gin consumption in Britain reaches a peak of three gallons per person per year. George Washington buys his way into the Virginia House of Burgesses with 144 gallons of hooch in 1758. In 1787 The Founding Fathers celebrate the Constitutions's ratification with a legendary bender. America, fuck yeah. There is a God! The first batch of bourbon is made by a Baptist minister in 1789. In 1792 Absinthe is invented. "The Green Fairy" is blamed for homicides, suicides, and that Baz Lurhmann movie.

In 1794 the Whiskey Rebellion occurs. Consult a middle schooler if you can't remember what that was, 'cause we can't either. The word cocktail first appears in print. Literacy rates skyrocket in 1806. In 1832 Abraham Lincoln receives his first liquor license and emancipates frontiersmen from sobriety. Fifteen states declare alcohol illegal in the 1850s; booze consumption jumps by 63 percent. Naturally. In 1862 The martini is invented. Olive drownings reach epidemic proportions. In 1863 Vin Manani, a cocaine wine that Pope Leo XIII endorsed, arrives. It's addictively delicious!

The Manhattan is invented ... at the behest of Winston Churchill's mother in 1874. In 1888 Absinthe enthusiast Vincent Van Gogh cuts off left ear lobe to impress a girl. It totally worked. Seriously, give it a try. The teenage Ernest Hemingway begins his life in the cups as a cub reporter in Kansas City in 1916. In 1919 the National Prohibition Act is passed. Americans can't drink but are allowed to wear funny hats. Franklin Roosevelt decides to celebrate his election with a drink, and repeals Prohibition in 1933. In 1934 the Bloody Mary (Breakfast of champions) is invented at the St. Regis Hotel in New York.

In 1976 Vodka becomes America's best-selling spirit, knocking gin from its boozy perch. Future Boozer-in-Chief George W.Bush is arrested for DUI. John Bonham dies in 1980 after an all-day bender. It was a shock. He took such great care of himself. Going to war? Yes. Buying a beer? No. The U.S. government raises the drinking age to 21 in 1984. In 1998 a hung-over David Wells pitches a perfect game and in 2007 the American ban on absinthe is lifted. Bring on the murder-inducing hallucinations!

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