The Origin of Wine: Scientific American

Description

Although microbes may have invented alcohol, it was the mammals that mastered it. Usually this meant simply munching on one overripe palm fruit too many—but then there are Indian elephants , which are known to have a hankering for liquor and rice beer. From tipsy tree shrews to drunken monkeys, the primate lineage crawls with critters getting high off the hooch. And with our fruit-eating pedigree, 10 percent of the modern human liver's enzymes are solely dedicated to turning alcohol into energy. In all likelihood, the hangover has been a part of human history a lot longer than the goblet.

Just how long did it take before humans started intentionally transforming nature's botanical bounty into Calvados and Cabernet? The oldest fermented beverage known is a 9,000-year-old rice and honey wine identified on pottery shards from the village of Jiahu in central China. According to biomolecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern of the ...

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