Facts About Alcohol That May Surprise You
From ancient Arabic origins to bizarre traditions, get ready to have your perceptions of alcohol completely shattered.
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Beer Blog
Alcohol is of Arabic origin. Islam and alcohol may appear to the first-time observer as totally different universes. However, history has a more complex narration in the sense that Arab Muslim scholars and traders had a staggering impact in bringing medieval Europe the technology of distillation. Europeans had long since been drinking wine, mead, and beer, but this transfer of information was what opened the doors to the European drinking culture to more potent liquids. However, it was in the Middle East during the Crusades that it learnt about such an interesting phenomenon as a distillation cube.
Overall, Aristotle was aware of the basic principles of distillation, but it was a Persian alchemist, Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan, born ca. 721 AD, who was the first to invent a distillation apparatus closer to the modern one. He artificially attempted to synthesize gold, like his fellow scientists in Europe. The first application was Eastern alchemists, who employed alcohol in making cosmetics, perfumes, and incense products. The term origin is the term itself, alcohol, which is derived from the Arabic al-cohl, with the meaning of eye liner. There are also instances where some daredevils went ahead and ingested his invention even in the lifetime of Jabir. As an instance, Abu Nuwas, an Arab poet who tasted a sip of alcohol, wrote poems where he asserted that the beverage burned in the ribs like embers when drunk.
The Global Journey And Unusual Sources Of Alcohol
You can enjoy a good game here – Red Dog Casino for Real Money. A century later, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi improved the distillation cube. By the 11th century, in Sicily, then under the Fatimid Caliphate of Cairo, large quantities of maal-hayat, or “water of life,” were already being produced. From there, by around 1200, ethyl alcohol had made its way to Spain, where it was renamed aqua vitae, the Latin translation of that same phrase. This marked the beginning of strong spirits’ steady journey across Europe and, eventually, around the globe, shaping drinking traditions that still influence today’s beer, wine, and spirits culture.
If desired, alcohol can be distilled from anything. It is known that alcohol can be produced from almost any organic material. Most often it is made from starchy raw materials, rye, wheat, and other grains, potatoes, and corn. It can also be made from apples, pears, and other fruits. And even from beets. But there are more exotic options, such as cacti and succulents from South America. Or agave juice. Drinks are also made from parsnips, cashews, bananas, chestnuts, millet, sorghum, fir branches, aloe, and even a carnivorous plant called sundew. The latter is fermented with other herbs and spices, as well as the beetles it catches; this is important.
Ancient Asian Alcohol Traditions
In Asia, traditional alcoholic drinks have traditionally been made out of local produce such as rice and sugar cane. Traditional sake would in the past be produced in Japan by chewing the rice, and fermentation would occur with the enzymes in the saliva. The topmost variety, referred to as a bidzinshu or a beautiful woman cup of sake, was brewed by carefully selected young women who had never seen a man, something that was thought to maintain the purity of the drink.
The traditions of China developed in another way; during special events, some celebrants’ drinks could include snakes, scorpions, or even mice at the time of birth, and, since they believed that the alcohol would take away their infusion, its power would be more pronounced. Though the implications may have been deadly concerning venom coagulants, the culture exhibited a strong sense of cultural affiliation between alcohol and youth. Fear of the strange never prevented human beings, as it is indicated in history, from raising a glass, as if to exotic infusions or toasting with a modern twist like a crisp, tangy blood orange IPA.
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