🏺 A History of the World in 6 Glasses

🧉 Formating

==Big Idea== - red highlight

@@PE (political, economical)@@ - orange highlight

$CS (cultural, social)$ - yellow highlight

%%IE (innovative, environmental)%% - green highlight

cause → effect

word <- definition

Short on time? The introduction is a summary of the rest of the book.

🍼 Introduction: Vital Fluids

Importance of Water in Past
  * A long time ago (150,000 years to civilization) → humans confined to rivers
    * storing was impractical
  * Other beverages emerged → had to be made deliberately (unlike water)
    * ==Water was disease filled== → different beverages were not
    * many uses
      * @@currencies@@
      * $religious rites$
      * @@political symbols@@
      * $philosophical + artistic inspiration$
      * @@highlight power + status of elite@@
      * @@subjugate + appease lessers@@
      * $celebrate births$
      * $grieve deaths$
      * $forge + strengthen social bonds$
      * @@seal business transactions + treaties@@
      * sharpen senses
      * dull the mind
      * %%use in medicine%%
      * %%use as poison%%
  * Each drink became popular when:
    * ==met a need OR aligned w historical trend==
Path toward modernity (Beer)
  * adoption of farming
    * Near East 10k years ago → domestication of cereal (wheat etc.) grains
      * → rudimentary beer
  * growth from civilizations
    * organized agricultural large scale → surplus
      * surplus of grain → more beer
      * acted as a normal drink +
      * freed workers → specialization
        * @@wages paid in bread + beer@@ (cereal grains)
Preliminary Western thought (Wine)
  * Greeks
    * advances in philosophy + politics + science + literature
      * spread worldwide through $wine trade$ on seas
      * $discussed at symposia$ (formal drinking parties)
  * Romans
    * $hierarchy$ reflected in wine style
    * $Christianity$ → wine part of ritual
    * $Islam$ → wine banned
Exploration and Expansion (Spirits) [aka brandy, rum, whiskey, etc.]
  * Global sea routes
    * European wanted to expand
    * %%Distilled drinks → alcohol at sea%%
  * @@Currency@@
    * slave trade
    * @@establishing USA@@
Age of Reason (Coffee)
  * coffee houses
    * new %%scientific%% + @@political@@ + @@economic@@ theories
    * different from taverns
    * encouraged clear thinking
    * scientific societies + newspapers + financial institutions + revolutions
Trade with the East (Tea)
  * foundations for @@imperialism@@ + %%industrialization%%
    * @@open trade routes@@ from popularity in Britain
    * Britain as a global superpower
  * need to tea
    * demand → British @@foreign policy@@
      * @@independence@@ of @@USA@@
      * @@less power@@ in @@China@@
      * @@production@@ in @@India@@
America’s National Drink (Coca-Cola)
  * @@consumer capitalism@@ → @@US@@ into superpower
    * invented as a medical pick-me-up
    * with American armed forces around the world
  * symbol of @@single global marketplace@@
    * world’s most widely know product

🍺 Beer in Mesopotamia and Egypt

🦴 A Stone-Age Brew

🦖 A Pint of Prehistory

migration of humans out of Africa
  * 50k years ago
  * small bands
    * lived in ==temporary homes== → caves, huts, tents
    * ==seasonal== food supply
%%Agricultural revolution%%
  * 12k years ago
  * settled into @@villages@@ → cities → empires
  * also developed new %%technologies%%
Barley + wheat
  * before could only drink water/animal products
  * Don’t know when invented
    * no beer before 10k BCE
      * common at 4k BCE
  *
  * ancient beer has grains + chaff → needed straw in order to drink
  *
nomadic → $settled lifestyle$
increase in $social complexity$ → ==emergence of cities==

🔎 The Discovery of Beer

discovered
  * gathering of wild grain around end of last Ice Age
    * 10k BCE in Fertile Crescent
      *
  * ideal environment for sheep + goats + cattle + pigs + barley
    * first established large scale settlements
    * ==reliable source of food==
Grain usage
  * can’t eat raw
    * edible by crushing + mixing with water
  * \

    1. made with soup → %%thickener%%
    * \
      * fish + nuts + berries + water
    * plaster + bitumen-lined basket
    * hot stones dropped in
    * grains have starch → absorb moisture and burst
      * thickening soup
  * %%Stored%%
    * stores for weeks/months/years
      * do not recommend
    * could be made with soup or eaten on own
      * gruel
    * → development of tools to store grain
      * guard against %%famine%%
%%Innovations with grain%%
  * flint-bladed sickles → harvesting
  * woven baskets → carrying
  * stone hearths → drying
  * underground pits → storing
  * grindstones → processing
→ ==encouraged people to stay in one place==
  * 1960s experiment (archeologists are nerds)
    * using flint-bladed sickle ==harvested 2 pounds of grain in 1 hour== of wild grains in Turkey
      * family working 8 hours a day x 3 weeks = ==each member gets a pound a day for a year==
  * ==had to stay near wild cereal== → not miss best harvest time
    * would not want to leave ==unguarded==
==→ first permanent settlements==
  * East Mediterranean coast 10k BCE
    * round huts + wooden roofs
      * hearth + stone floor + 4-5 yards wide
    * village ~ 50 huts → 200/300 people
%%grain properties (1) → sugar%%
  * soaked in water → %%sprouted → tasted sweet%%
  * storage pits not watertight
    * diastase %%enzymes → starch → sugar or malt%%
    * barley produces most → tastes sweetest
  * not a lot of sweet things → highly valued
    * %%deliberate malting%% → grain soaked then dried
%%grain properties (2) → Beer%%
  * gruel left out %%→ slightly fizzy + pleasantly intoxicating%%
  * not first alcohol found
    * fruit juice ferments → wine
      * seasonal + perishes easily
      * could not be stored without pottery (6k BCE)
    * water + honey → mead
      * limited qualities of wild honey
      * could not be stored without pottery
  * ==→ made reliably + quantity + when needed==
    * brewed in
      * pitch-lined baskets
      * hollowed out trees
        * Sahti beer (made in Finland) tradition
      * large shells
        * 19th century Amazon basin was most recent
      * stone vessels
  * %%quality improved through trial + error%%
    * stronger beer

😵‍💫 Under the Influence of Beer?

historical evidence
* writing was not invented → $no written records for cultural + social impact$
* $inferred$ from later traditions that continued
$social drink$
  * sumerian depictions → shared vessel
    * was possible at time to filter + pottery → served individually
    * $ritual persisted even though not needed$
  * unlike food → beverage shared
    * cutting up meat → some have desirbale
    * sharing drink → trusted
    * clinking of glasses
$magical drink$
  * fermentation + effects → magic
  * connected to gods
    * Egypt → Osiris
$religious ceremonies$
  * every religious ritual → America + Africa + Eurasia
    * Inca → chicha (beer) to ground or rising sun
    * Aztec → pulque to Mayahuel
    * China → beers from millet + rice

🌱 Beer and Farming, the seeds of Modernity

beer → %%adoption of agricultural%%
  * up for debate
  * beer discovered → socially + ritually important → desire to have more
    * one of many factors
%%vitamin help%%
* long term storage → would have been drunken earlier → low alochol high yeast
* vitamin D → need less meat
==safer to drink than water==
* contaminated
communal storehouses
* storing + ritual → intertwined → recorded in clay tokens → priests live off
* %%→ autocracy, writing, bureaucracy%%

🌆 Civilized Beer

🛞 The Urban Revolution

Mesopotamia → most farmers
* banded together for many factors → rise of urban working population
* invasions?
made possible by agricultural surplus
  * $freeded admin + craftsman$
  * $funded public works$
  * edible money

🧑 The Drink of the Civilized Man

Sumer (S Mesopotamia)
  * writing emerged 3.4k BCE
  * Epic of Gilgamesh
    * primitive nature of Enkidu → shown lack of familiarity w bread and beer
  * ^^saw as made fully human^^
  * drunkness seen humorous
Egypt
  * beer in pyramid texts
  * Ra + Hathor
  * disapproval of drunkeness
    * unrepresentative of any career besides scribe

🪶 The Origins of Writing

earliest documents
* tax reciptes + wage lists w beer
@@neohilitic socialism → control over economy@@
  * record what was going out → writing
  * different shapes → different standard amounts
  * $primary source of food$ → 3k to 4k calories
Cuneiform
* pictographs became more abstract

🪙 Liquid Wealth and Health

$redistributed to fund public works$
  * sumerian temple work force → sila of beer a day (one liter)
  * junoir officals → 2 silas; higher court → 3 silas; highest officals → 5 silas
    * ^^example of social hierachy discovered through beer^^
    * extra used to tip messengers + scribes + pay
^^wedding rituals^^
* bride price → groom to bride
* women + childern recived + refugees + soliders + policemen + scribes
pyramid workers in Egypt paid in beer
* pyramids built by state employees → collected grain + redistburted it as payment
^^bread + beer → word for food in general^^
* also daily greeting
* banquet → place of bread + beer
pharmacopoeia → list of medical recipes based on beer
* oldest use of alcohol in medicine
egypt → afterlife
* depended on having beer

🍷 Wine in Greece and Rome

The Delight of Wine

demonstrat power + weatlth → wine part of
  * as opposed to tradiotnal beer
  * prev only availble in small amount
    * transpot x10
      * only elite could drink
comparsion to beer
  * scoial seperation
  * main use relgious → creation of reliious rituals
  * wine → propganda of power
    * prosperity + privlede
how made
  * eurasian grape vines + avialibitl of cereal vrops + invention of potery
  * fremented juice of crushed grapes
  * 5.4k BCE
  * bliblical story of noah → relgious connection
spread
  * egypt early rulers (king scorpionn I) → 700 jars of wine
  * original greek gods drank necter (mead) → then wine got more popular
    * introduced later
    * dinoysus
    * accesss to wine as mark fo status
  * ashurnasirpal + shalmanser → social + rel beverage
avaiblity grew
  * volume of wine traded over sea → more avilable
  * larger empires → fewer borders to tax and trade
  * volume go up, prices go down → peasents oculd drink
    * desired tribute offfering → wine rations
expanding
  * hard to transport over land → boats carried
    * could not go upstream → broken up and sold
  * still expensive → date palm wine became popular intstead (fermented date syrup)
assumpitions
* that one and the other → rather both at same time
greek thinkers → rational inqury (test one though t agisnt the other)
* democrayc + philsoophy + scientific method + legal system + athletics
* superitoy over forgegineers
symposia
  * venues of discussion → reminder how cilvizied they were
  * Symposium → is singluare version
  * manner of grecian approval
dinoysus
  * fled to greece to escape beer mediterraien
  * creaated beer for benfit of mediterrian
  * greece wince availble to everyone
geography
  * ideal for viticulutre
  * scientifc approach
    * wine press
    * neat rows
switched to industrial farming
  * commerial farming
    * x20 from growing wine vs grain
      * captialism modern
social heriachy
* soical status basee don vineyard ho.dings
9iamgery/importantce
* greek coinds
* targets of peloponesian war between athens = sparta
type
  * everyone drank wine → type mattered
  * local/demositc → start of CC/copyright fro distinction
  * older >>>
drinkign style
* mix w water
* \