Libations & Liabilities

There are two ways to look at alcohol. One is to believe humanity was handed the bottle by the gods. The other is to look at the archaeological evidence and say, “Or maybe humans just figured out fermentation and then collectively decided this was a good idea.”

Both are considerably more interesting than pretending somebody invented happy hour in 1974.

Alcohol is ancient. Really ancient. Archaeological evidence places fermented beverages thousands of years before the civilizations that eventually gave them gods. Evidence includes wine in the Zagros around 5400 BCE, barley beer around 3400 BCE, and an even older fermented drink from Neolithic China dating roughly 9,000 years ago.

So if there was a divine liquor department, nobody has found its employee handbook.

THEN WE GAVE THE BOOZE GODS NAMES.

Ancient cultures didn't merely drink. They built rituals and mythology around drinking.

The Greeks had Dionysus, god of wine and the pleasures associated with it. His Roman counterpart was Bacchus. Dionysian festivals involved celebration, music, dancing and intoxication, while the Greek symposium became an actual social institution built around drinking, conversation and entertainment.

And the symposium wasn't some ancient version of three dudes sitting around a bar watching football. It was structured. Wine was mixed with water, a designated master of ceremonies determined the mixture, and drinking was accompanied by conversation, poetry, music, games and performances.

Mesopotamia had Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of brewing. We even have a surviving Sumerian hymn devoted to her and describing the brewing process.

Ancient Egypt had its own relationship with divine intoxication. In the mythology surrounding Hathor and the fierce goddess Sekhmet, intoxication actually plays a role in stopping the destruction of humanity. Egyptian festivals involving drunkenness are also documented.

So if we're asking whether ancient people connected alcohol with divinity, pleasure, celebration, sexuality and altered consciousness, the answer is pretty unambiguous. They absolutely did. But here's where the skeptic gets to ruin the party.

WHAT IF THERE WEREN'T ANY GODS INVOLVED?

That pretty much means we didn't need a deity to teach us to drink. We discovered fermentation, and then we soon discovered that fermented liquids tasted good and affected consciousness, and eventually incorporated them into meals, ceremonies, medicine, commerce, religion and social gatherings.

There wasn't one historical day when somebody stood up and announced: "...henceforth, we shall drink at weddings.”

Customs don't generally work that way. They accumulate. Drinking became socially meaningful because people repeatedly did it together.

The Greek symposium is one beautifully documented example. By the sixth century BCE, communal drinking had already become an established social institution. And drinking wasn't exclusively about getting drunk. Ancient Greek wine was normally diluted with water, and the symposium had rules specifically intended to regulate consumption. ..In other words, even the ancient Greeks understood that “Let's just keep pouring shit into ourselves” wasn't necessarily a sophisticated social strategy.

AND THEN THERE'S THE DEAD! Here we go!

The tradition of pouring one out for somebody who died isn't some modern invention.

Ancient Greeks used libations, pouring liquid offerings to gods and, in some contexts, honoring the deceased. Roman funerary traditions likewise included liquid offerings and commemorative rituals.

So when somebody today raises a glass and says, “This one's for him,” they're participating in a tradition with very old roots. Apparently somebody decided death required a beverage. Fair enough.

THEN ALCOHOL GOT HORNY. Not literally. Your liver is not a matchmaker.

But alcohol can reduce inhibitions and alter perceptions, expectations and judgment. Research has found relationships between alcohol, sexual arousal, disinhibition and sexual risk-taking, although the relationship is considerably more complicated than “drink equals horny.”

Which explains the familiar progression:

“Let's have one drink.”

→ “I'm finally relaxing.”

→ “Put on some music.”

→ “You know what? You look really good tonight.”

→ “Well, this escalated efficiently.”

Alcohol doesn't manufacture attraction. It can lower some of the psychological brakes around attraction that was already there.

So perhaps lube is for noobs... Liquor's quicker.

🤣 Terrible advice. But it's excellent headline material. WHAT DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT FROM THE BOTTLE? They RELAX.

Take the edge off. Loosen up. Become funnier than you actually are. Dance when nobody asked. Tell the same story three times. GET LAID.

Sometimes the drinking is basically social lubrication for sexual chemistry. Alcohol can make people feel more sexually uninhibited, even though too much can actually interfere with physical sexual functioning and judgment.

REMEMBER SOMEBODY.

A toast to the dead. A shot on an anniversary. A bottle poured out in someone's memory. Alcohol has long occupied a place in rituals surrounding death and remembrance, alongside food and other offerings.

BOND.

Business deals. Friendships. First dates. Reunions. Celebrations. Because sometimes the drink isn't really the point. It's the excuse to sit down together.

AND THEN THERE'S ANGER.

Here's the part where the romantic mythology falls apart. Alcohol can impair judgment and impulse control, and research has examined its relationship with aggression and other disinhibited behavior. There is a reason “angry drunk” isn't generally considered a charming personality type. Alcohol has historically been used to celebrate, mourn, socialize, relax and flirt.

It was never a magical permission slip to act out every shitty impulse you've been carrying around all week. Yet America once decided that perhaps the entire country should simply stop drinking.

ENTER PROHIBITION.

The American temperance movement began gaining organized momentum in the early 1800s. Some of the earliest temperance societies were established in New York in 1808 and Massachusetts in 1813, and Protestant evangelical groups became deeply involved.

By the late nineteenth century, much of the movement had shifted from moderation toward outright prohibition. Religion was part of the story, but it wasn't the whole story.

Temperance advocates also associated alcohol with poverty, family problems, crime, workplace problems and social disorder. Reformers wanted to attack the liquor industry and what they regarded as corrupt political relationships surrounding it.

The 18th Amendment was ratified in 1919, and the Volstead Act supplied the federal enforcement mechanism. Prohibition began in January 1920. And then America discovered something rather inconvenient: MAKING SOMETHING ILLEGAL DOESN'T MAKE PEOPLE STOP WANTING IT.

Illegal liquor became enormously profitable. Bootlegging expanded. Speakeasies flourished. Organized crime became deeply involved in the alcohol trade. Enforcement became increasingly difficult.

By the early 1930s, the political climate had changed dramatically. The Great Depression made the costs of enforcement harder to justify, while legal alcohol offered potential tax revenue and the possibility of taking the liquor monopoly away from criminal organizations.

So the United States did something rather spectacular. It changed its mind.

President Franklin Roosevelt supported repeal. Congress proposed the 21st Amendment, and on December 5, 1933, it was ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment.

And that is the important part: America didn't repeal Prohibition because everyone suddenly decided drinking was morally wonderful. The national policy had become difficult to enforce, the illegal market had produced serious unintended consequences, public support had weakened, and economic considerations mattered enormously during the Depression.

Legal alcohol could once again be taxed and regulated. The government didn't suddenly discover Dionysus. It discovered federalism, enforcement costs, organized crime and tax revenue. And perhaps that's the most interesting part of the whole story. We don't actually need a god to explain why humans drink.

We need creative minds.

It was we who discovered fermentation. We turned it into ritual, and then we attached gods to it.

We have used it to celebrate births and marriages, mourn deaths, seal friendships, conduct business, loosen inhibitions and occasionally make spectacularly questionable decisions.

Then others decided it was destroying society. Then still, there were others that up and decided banning it was creating its own problems. Then everybody collectively said: "Regulate it. ASAP” And here we are, thousands of years later, still raising glasses to the dead, buying bottles for weddings, ordering another round after work and occasionally waking up thinking:

“Who the hell thought that was a good idea?”Probably not Ninkasi. She had a brewery to run.

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