The Origins of Alcoholic Beverages

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Early grains that were first farmed were not good for making tacos oror bread products, but they were very well suited to making alcoholic beverages. It's really a pretty dramatic re writing of where we come from, yes. And it was surprising to me that this wasn't more widely known. So i already had a sense that alcohol is playing this important role in helping us adapt to civilization,. But when i started reading the archaeological literature I was like, wall actually, luito quite literally gave rise to civilization, if this is true.

Do we have alcohol to thank for civilization? The answer, according to Edward Slingerland’s new book, “Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization,” is a resounding yes. Edward, who’s a professor at the University of British Columbia and self-proclaimed “philosophical hedonist,” says that far from being an evolutionary fluke, our taste for alcohol is an evolutionary advantage — one that we’ve relied on for millennia to help us lead more social, creative, and pleasurable lives.