Since alcohol is simply the product of yeast acting on sugars, it is easily obtained. Yeast will convert one molecule of glucose to 2 molecules of alcohol and 2 molecules of CO2. All that is needed is a source of glucose, yeast, water, and enough heat to speed the reaction. Our ancestors were drinking fermented beverages centuries before it was understood that the active ingredient was alcohol. Some of the earliest evidence of alcohol production dates from over 7,000 years ago where alcohol was obtained from fermented honey in China. There is evidence of wine being produced in Egypt over 6,000 years ago and wine was more fully developed in Babylonia. Wine was extensively produced and consume in ancient Greece and Rome and it was not until the 16 hundreds that distillation was utilized to increase the alcohol concentration by producing gin. Alcohol was widely consumed in the USA in the 18th and 19th centuries even to the point that Harvard University had its own brewery.
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During the late 1800s the adverse effects of consuming excessive amounts of alcohol were increasingly apparent which led to prohibition in United States in 1920. It was felt that alcohol caused poverty, social disorder and crime. However the legal abolishment of alcohol production lasted only 13 years because the law was very difficult to enforce, resulted in organized crime and increased prevalence of distilled beverages, some of which were toxic. Prohibition was repealed in 1933 and since that time there has been a number of regulations controlling the production, sale and consumption of alcohol, with prohibition of underage drinking and a high tax on alcoholic beverages.
The History of Alcohol.
