A group of young women toast the end of Prohibition in the luxury liner SS Manhattan, off New York, 1933. Before its repeal, the ship s bar was required to close 12 miles out from the U.S. coast. FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Drinking has been so widespread throughout history that Patrick McGovern, an archaeological chemist at the University of Pennsylvania, called it a universal language in an Economist article. Indeed, you re hard-pressed to find a culture or event in history that alcohol (or lack of it) didn t feature in some way.
In a sense, alcoholic beverages are just a simple matter of chemistry and physiology. When yeast cells consume carbohydrates in grains, vegetables or fruits, they produce a fluid called