Trace the 7,000 year old history of alcohol, from its first known origins in China to cultures all over the world fermenting their own drinks.
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Nobody knows exactly when humans began to create fermented beverages. The earliest known evidence comes from 7,000 BCE in China, where residue in clay pots has revealed that people were making an alcoholic beverage from fermented rice, millet, grapes, and honey. So how did alcohol come to fuel global trade and exploration? Rod Phillips explores the evolution of alcohol.
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Content
6.794 -> This chimpanzee stumbles
across a windfall of overripe plums.
12.118 -> Many of them have split open,
14.081 -> drawing him
to their intoxicating fruity odor.
17.601 -> He gorges himself
19.032 -> and begins to experience some…
strange effects.
23.042 -> This unwitting ape
has stumbled on a process
26.032 -> that humans will eventually harness
28.179 -> to create
beer, wine, and other alcoholic drinks.
33.192 -> The sugars in overripe fruit
attract microscopic organisms
37.438 -> known as yeasts.
38.878 -> As the yeasts feed on the fruit sugars
they produce a compound called ethanol—
43.781 -> the type of alcohol
in alcoholic beverages.
46.791 -> This process is called fermentation.
49.766 -> Nobody knows exactly when
51.861 -> humans began
to create fermented beverages.
54.611 -> The earliest known evidence
comes from 7,000 BCE in China,
59.572 -> where residue in clay pots
61.682 -> has revealed that people
were making an alcoholic beverage
64.875 -> from fermented rice, millet,
grapes, and honey.
69.311 -> Within a few thousand years,
71.111 -> cultures all over the world
were fermenting their own drinks.
75.441 -> Ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians
made beer throughout the year
79.663 -> from stored cereal grains.
81.919 -> This beer
was available to all social classes,
84.837 -> and workers
even received it in their daily rations.
88.232 -> They also made wine,
89.922 -> but because the climate
wasn’t ideal for growing grapes,
92.882 -> it was a rare and expensive delicacy.
96.212 -> By contrast, in Greece and Rome,
where grapes grew more easily,
100.162 -> wine was as readily available
as beer was in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
105.072 -> Because yeasts
will ferment basically any plant sugars,
108.702 -> ancient peoples made alcohol
110.625 -> from whatever crops and plants
grew where they lived.
113.995 -> In South America,
people made chicha from grains,
117.195 -> sometimes adding hallucinogenic herbs.
119.912 -> In what’s now Mexico,
pulque, made from cactus sap,
123.806 -> was the drink of choice,
125.316 -> while East Africans
made banana and palm beer.
129.476 -> And in the area that’s now Japan,
people made sake from rice.
133.916 -> Almost every region of the globe
had its own fermented drinks.
137.689 -> As alcohol consumption
became part of everyday life,
141.125 -> some authorities latched onto effects
they perceived as positive—
145.68 -> Greek physicians
considered wine to be good for health,
148.92 -> and poets
testified to its creative qualities.
152.305 -> Others were more concerned
about alcohol’s potential for abuse.
