🏺 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 <-
  - more malted grain in gruel
  - longer left to ferment
  - throughly cooking gruel
  - malting converts 15% of starch → boiled → more enzymes transform → more starch into sugar → more alcohol
  - same container for brewing
  - mash tubs in Mesopotamia
  - yeast cultures in containers in cracks
    - didn’t need to rely on wild yeast
  - adding berries + honey + spices + herbs + flavorings → taste different
- types of beer
- Ancient Egyptian 17 kinds of beer → long names of great importance
- religious ceremonies have special names
- Ancient Mesopotamia >20 kinds of beer → controlled taste by adding %%bappir%%
  - bappir <- beer-bread
  - sprouted barely → small loaves → baked twice → dark + crunchy unleavened bread
  - stored for years
  - kept in government storehouses
    - only eaten in food shortages
- debate over beer vs. bread vs. gruel
- archeologists argue
  - beer as an offshoot of bread or bread as an offshoot of beer
  - <- from the first breads being bappir
- author’s assumption: %%both bread + beer from gruel%%
  - thick gruel + sun → flatbread
  - thin gruel + time → 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
- \