Drinking cultures - Part 1 of 3
A sober investigation into why humans continue to get drunk 10,000 years after discovering alcohol.
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It was a post from an agency working on a campaign for a liquor brand. In case you were wondering why I’m writing about booze. The post got me thinking about how we drink differently in different cultures. And what it means.
But also, I became curious about the universality of ‘drinking’ in culture. So here we are, with a three-part series that touches on the history (and anthropology) of alcohol, as well as its uses and customs.
Before we dunk in, a little bit of film (and book) trivia. See if you can guess which brief descriptions match which stories and titles. (I’ll insert the key in part 2 of this series.)
A bitter, aging couple, with the help of alcohol, use their young house guests to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other over the course of a distressing night.
An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away and resists the affections of his wife. A reunion with his terminal father jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.
A retired, hard-boozing detective and his wife solving a murder mystery together, frequently with a glass of liquor in hand.
At college, the Dean is determined to expel the entire Fraternity, but those troublemakers have other plans for him.
Two finance employees having the party of a lifetime with their boss for the weekend. The only problem? The boss is dead.
A depressed, divorced, unsuccessful writer who just wants to taste fine wine on a road trip with his best friend, who, on the other hand, wants one last romantic fling before he commits to lifetime monogamy.
Four friends travel to a big city for a bachelor party to celebrate an impending marriage. They wake up with the groom missing and no memory of the previous night’s events.
A self-made millionaire pursues a wealthy young woman whom he loved in his youth.
A charming man resolves to swim home from a party by way of his neighbors’ pools.
There are many more books and films that deal with the theme of alcohol along a spectrum—from the hope of the recovery center all the way to personal misery of addiction. It’s a complex topic that has become charged in culture.
My disclaimer—I’m not qualified for nor providing any advice, health or otherwise, nor do I have strong opinions on either end of the spectrum. My place on the spectrum is the occasional drink with a meal or in social gatherings.
There must be reasons why humans started drinking fermented fluids thousands of years ago, and continue to do so to this day. Why we didn’t ‘evolve’ out of ethanol, which is the substance that triggers the release of reward chemicals in the brain.
We discovered fermentation and invented wine and beer, because they were useful. Culture did the rest.
In Part 1, I’m including a brief review of the history of drinking, that of the places where we consume alcohol, and the role of specific glasses in culture.
Then, in Part 2, I’ll switch more firmly onto historical roots of the benefits of fermented libation to society, customs, and interesting experiments to test value.
Part 3 will be a historical review of how we brand, package, market, and sell a promise to make it the most appealing, with selected libations from Northern Italy and Europe—including my favorite wines, beers, and digestive liquors.
Let’s plunge into the history of why we drink.
Tipping one’s own horn
Or the history of imbibing while partying.
Early archeological record dates back to 20,000 years ago. A carving that old in the south of France outlines a woman—maybe a fertility goddess—with a horn held to her mouth. Horns were used for drinking.
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