History of bottled-in-bond whiskey

With a full one hundred years of existence as a nation, American consumers still had little assurance that the products they purchase were pure. During America’s first century, the distillers sold barrels of whiskey to rectifiers, wholesalers and merchants who took control of the whiskey and often but not always, bottled it.

In the late 1880s and early 1890s distillers who likely were tired of the impurities added to their whiskey started to bottle for themselves. The method bottled-in-bond came into being in 1897 when the federal government permitted distillers to keep their barrels in government supervised warehouse for the four year minimum aging period.
The concept of bottling in bond refers to spirits that have been produced and bottled in accordance with a set of legal regulations meant to ensure authenticity and quality.

The regulations signed into laws as the 1897 Bottled-in-Bond Act were that the spirit must be at least four years old, have been bottled at one hundred proof, be the product of one distillery and one distiller in one season, and be unadulterated (only pure water could be added) and that the labels on both the bottle and the shipping case must clearly identify the distillery where it was distilled and if different the distillery where it was bottled.

President Grover Cleveland signed the act into law and bourbon distiller celebrated while the liquor dealers were relieved that they could continue to rectify bourbon whiskey.

It took a number of years for the concept of bottled-in-bond water whiskey to become well known among the general public, even though public attention had been first drawn to the practice by Hiram Walker and Sons’ 1893 Chicago World’s Fair exhibit which spotlighted the Canadian bottle-in-bond law, which had been passed in 1883.
History of bottled-in-bond whiskey

Rye Whiskey

From Wild West towns like Tombstone, Abilene, and Cheyenne to the plush salons of New Orleans, Saint Louis and New York City, rye whiskey was the most popular spirit of eighteenth century America.

The Scottish-Irish immigrant distillers has some exposure to using rye in whiskey production, but their German immigrant neighbors, rye had been the primary grain used in the production of schnapps and vodka back in northern Europe.

They continued this distilling practice, particularly in Pennsylvania and Maryland, where rye whiskey, with its distinctive hard-edged, grainy palate, remained the dominant whiskey type well into the twentieth century.

The thirst for this alcoholic brew traveled as far as the West Indies, France, England, the Philippines and even China. And the best of the rye was Monongahela Rye, manufactured in the Laurel Highlands.

In the late 1700s and early 1800sm the hills and meadows along Monongahela River were lush with planted rye. There are between modern Belle Vernon and Monessen was known as the best rye growing soil on the fledgling nation. It was here, in small cottage industry stills, that the best of the famous Monongahela Rye whiskey was first produced.

Rye whiskey has had a huge impact on the growth of America, being a product birthed from a revolution. It was ‘Americanized’ in 1791 when Alexander Hamilton proposed a tax on this spirit. The protest in Pennsylvania soon turned violent, and a group of about 400 whiskey rebels took a stand near Pittsburgh.

Production of rye whiskeys had vanished altogether from the Mid-Atlantic states by 1980s. A handful of modern rye whiskies are currently being made by bourbon distilleries in Kentucky and Indiana.
Rye Whiskey

History of chicha

South and Central American chicha was originally a term reserved for a maize-based alcoholic beverage that was chewed and salivated to introduce ptylin, which converts starch to fermentable sugars.

Well-made chicha is an attractive beverage clear and effervescent, resembling apple cider in flavor. Chicha is probably derived from the word chichal, meaning ‘with saliva’ or ‘to spit’.

Chicha played a central role in the ceremonial and social life of Andean peoples before contact with the Old World. It is a type of beer drunk mostly by Inca rulers and nobles after battle victories and during ceremonies.

In the days of Incas, chicha was considered ot be the vehicle that linked man to his gods through the fecundity of the earth.

In those days, the emperor held office only as long as he could supply the required amounts of chicha for his people, in exchange for which the people carried out economic activities such as building an extraordinary network of roads and installing vast area of irrigated terraces for agriculture.

Chicha also played a key role in economic and social life, acting as the lynchpin of reciprocal exchanges.

Chicha also served as an important symbol for the Andean indigenismo movement in the first decades of the twentieth century and it continues to be enjoyed throughout the Andes at family, community and national celebrations, or simply as an afternoon treat.
History of chicha 

The history of fermentation beverage boza

Boza is a traditional drink, dating back to even before the Ottoman Empire. It’s a drink of ancient Egypt and Babylon.

This beverage origin goes back to Mesopotamia and it came to Macedonia with the Ottoman Empire.

Aside from coffee, boza enjoyed its golden age during the Ottoman Empire, as the beverage was spread to all the occupied lands. It was most probably brought by the Turks from Central Asia.

In English, the bosa was adopted form Turkic boza. There is not any source for the Old Turkic version of this word, however the known Middle Turkic sauces give: boza or buza.

Boza production was an important component of the Ottoman urban economy.

Boza had a thick consistency and low alcohol content with an acidic sweet flavor. The Ottoman army unit consumed boza because it was rich in carbohydras and vitamins. It was said that Sultan Babur (1483-1530) the founder of the Indian Mughals, the direct descendants of the Timurids, carried on the traditions on consuming boza.

During the reign of Salim II (1566-1574), boza consumption ran into government restriction when a new brand of the drink, laced with opium, was introduced to the market.

The Ottoman government once again imposed restriction on alcoholic beverages, including boza, during the reign Mohammed IV (164-1687), but consumption of the drink continued.

In 1680, the Grand Vizier, Cara Mustapha, permitted boza to be publicly sold and drink in the street of Constantinople.
The history of fermentation beverage boza

The Word of Alcohol

When alcohol first entered the English language in the early seventeenth century denoted a kind of cosmetic, specifically an eye liner once used in the Middle East by people such as Cleopatra and Nefertiti.

Francis Bacon, for example, refers to the substance in his 1626 work of natural history called Sylva Sylvarum: “The Turkes have a black Powder, made of a Mineral called Alochole; which with a fine long Pencil they lay under their Eye-lids.”

The powder in question was derived from an ore such as antimony sulfide, stibnite or lead, which Arabic came to be known as called al kohl, meaning the black powder.

Further back, Arabic acquired the word kohl for Hebrew kakhal, meaning to stain or to paint.

The fine powder used by Arabs women to paint their faces in order to increase their beauty.

After the word was introduced to English, it continued to denote a cosmetic eye-powder for at least a century.

Its meaning had broadened to include any fine powder, especially one derived by vaporizing a solid and then allowing the vapor to condense.

By the mid seventeenth century the meaning of the word had extended further, as it came to denote any liquid that is produced via distillation, as a result, the phrase alcohol of wine began to appear at this time as a name for a distilled wine.

Alcohol was first extracted from fermented liquors about AD 800 , by an Arabian chemist.

A physician name Arnoldus de Villa who lived in the south of Europe in thirteenth century was the first suggested the use of alcohol as a medicine.

By the mid eighteenth century alcohol of wine was commonly reduced to just alcohol, and was then applied to any spirit, whether it was distilled from wine, barley, or sugar cane.

The first distilled beverage was brandy, which means literally ‘burnt wine’. Distillation was first practiced in Europe in the Middle Ages, when it was primarily conducted by physician and monks, who intended their beverages to be medicinal.

In the 1890s, the word alcoholic came to denote a person addicted to alcohol, which prompted the slang form alkie in the early 1950s.

Today, alcohol has been further broadened in chemical terminology to designed any compound consisting of a hydrocarbon group joined to a hydroxyl group.
The Word of Alcohol

Ancient Distilled Spirits

Ancient Distilled Spirits
The invention of the process of distilling alcohol has not been precisely dated.

Using literary references, historians have found it hard to distinguish between simply fermented beverages such as beer and wine and the more potent beverages produced by boiling off the alcohol from a fermented beverage and recapturing it in a still.

References to a rice beer distilled into a rice brandy appear in China as early as 800 BC.

The Greeks, Romans and Arabs all apparently produced distilled beverages, although the first clear references do not show up until after AD 100.

Although the ancient Egyptians made beer and wine, both of which contain alcohol, they were unacquainted with distillation, and therefore did not know distilled spirits.

When and where the discovery of distillation took place there is no evidence to show, it the first mention of it that can be traced is by Aristotle in the fourth century BC, which describes the formation of mist and rain.

Although Aristotle had distilled wine and made dilute alcohol, he did not recognize it as anything other than water ‘water modified by a certain admixture,’ the nature of which determined it flavour.

In the 12th century, alchemists referred to aqua vitae (Latin) eau-de-vie (French) and uisge beatha (Gaelic) as terms for distilled alcohol.

Aqua vitae usually referred to a distillation of wine, or brandy, while the Gaelic uisge (pronounced wees-geh) is the origin of the word whisky, a beverage distilled from fermented barley.

The Scots began distilling in the 15th century and produced three types of whisky. When it was made solely from barley, then malted, dried over peat fire, fermented and then double distilled in alembics or pot stills, then aged in casks that had previously held sherry, the resulting beverage was known as a single malt or a singleton.

When two whiskies each from a single distillery, were brought together in a large vat, they were known as vatted whisky.
Ancient Distilled Spirits

History of Alcohol and Health

History of Alcohol and Health
Alcoholic beverages particularly wines were the prime medicinal agents of our ancestors from the ancient world into the early nineteenth century.

Wine was the most common ingredient in the medicine of ancient Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, other taken buy month or topically applied.

The Roman secular Pliny the Elder recommended a mixture of wine and rue –a strongly scented, bitter tasting shrub – for just about any type of insect sting or animal bite.

Jewish Talmudic tradition maintained that impotence could be cured by heating and drinking a mixture of wine and ground saffron.

The oddest prescription came from ancient Egypt; a combination of wine and ground up donkey testacies was fermented and used to treat epilepsy.

In addition to alcohol’s anesthetic properties, early physicians and folk healers recognized its ability to act as a disinfectant.

The doctors of olden times couldn’t see and don’t know about things like germs, single cell yeast, and antioxidants, but they did see cause and effect relationship.

Centuries ago people who drank alcohol (not to excess, of course) were healthier and hardier than those who did not due to its nutritional value. They lived longer and reproduced more.

Armies were “inoculated” against disease on their foreign campaigns by mixing wine with their local water supply to kill bacteria.

Early beer makers realized that unless their brew fermented for a certain time and reached an alcohol level of at least 5 percent, it would contain detrimental microorganism that produced “off” favors and odors and might even be dangerous to drink.

The curative compounds found in alcoholic beverages were not isolated and purified to be used on their own until the 1800s.

Brief History of Alcohol

Brief History of Alcohol
People have had a love affair with alcohol for a long time. Clay tables with cuneiform writing dating back to 2000 BC tell stories of beer and wine being used for sacramental purposes as well as pleasure.

The most readily available local material – dates, almonds, grapes, palms, pineapples, corn, rye, barley, roses, pears and apples – were fermented to produce these early drinks.

Fruit juices became wines, grains turned into beers and fermented honey into mead. Later, both fruits and grains became distilled spirits, liquor and liqueurs.

Finally, herbs were often added and this enticing liquid was used as medicine.

During the Middle Ages, European monks perfected these herbal libations, keeping their recipes a secrete for centuries.

In most parts of the world, early fermented beverages were more nutritional and safer than drinking the local waters. Liquor survived long sea journey in barrels.

The first immigrants to America carried this mistrust of water with them.

Drinking alcohol was commonplace and the familiar English pub was transformed into the American tavern.

Not only did taverns serve as a way station for travelers, but local meeting places as well, including holding religious services.

The honey atmosphere of the tavern was the source of all of the local news and gossip.

In fact, taverns were required by law in most of the Colonies.

Land grants and tax exemptions were granted to tavern owners, and the local tavern owner usually received the only newspaper in Colonial towns.

Taverns were as bars are today, centers of cultural and intellectual discoveries.

Many famous Americans owned drinking establishments: Ethan Allen, John Adams, William Penn, Andrew Jackson, even Lincoln has a license for a tavern.

At any time during our history bars and saloons have played a part.

In the 1950s, people gathered at bars to watch a new invention called television.

In the 1970s, they came to see large screen TVs, and in the 1980s, TV programs from around the world, obtained direct from satellites.

Today, taverns and local neighborhood bars have continued in popularity for individuals in all walks of life.

As our society has become more complex and diversified so has the concept of the local tavern and neighborhood pub. Although they continued to be places for people to exchange ideas, larger drinking establishments offering a variety of atmospheres and clientele have evolved.

Bars also provide us with the entertainment for listening or dancing.

To attract and keep a certain clientele, some bar owners offer total entertainment centers featuring the latest technological advances in audio and visual sensations. Obviously, this type of bar, costs millions of dollars a year to operate.

Alcohol has been a part of man’s diet for several thousand years. The earliest written records date back to almost 2000 BC. Today’s bars are sophisticated entertainment centers offering hundreds of choices of alcoholic beverages, afar cry from the fermented grapes stored in goats’ stomachs and unfired clay vessels of yesteryear.
Brief History of Alcohol

History of Wine

History of Wine
People acquired a preference for grapes as the basic ingredient for wine very early on, although on some African societies dates, bananas and the sap of palm tree were sometimes used, and indeed they sometimes still are. But wherever grapes could be grown they supplanted all other fruit as the basis for wine, just as barley did in the case of beer.

Viticulture is estimated to have originated in the 6th or 7th century B.C in the region to the south of the Black Sea. From there the crop spread to the four corners of the earth. Because of their higher alcohol content, wines could be kept longer than beer, and proved a suitable trading product over relatively long distances.

As a result, in ancient Egypt, whether beer was the drink of the ordinary people imported wine was a luxury item for the higher classes who used it – among other things – in religious ceremonies and for its medicinal properties. Later on, the Egyptians become wine growers themselves; we have hieroglyphics representing an Egyptian winepress dating as early as 3200 B.C.

In the Hellenic civilizations, and later in the Roman Empire, wine made from grapes was the dominant popular drink. Whenever the climate favored grapes, they were always the preferred basis for wine and viticulture predominated over the production of beer.

The high yield obtained from cultivating grapes together with the simplicity of the fermentation process and wine’s relatively high alcohol content – making it more intoxicating than beer and easier to keep – underlay the supremacy of wine.

Alongside the qualitative differences between wine and beer there are also social and political differences between growing grapes for wine and growing grain for beer. Cereals are annuals. The crop is harvested only a few months after the seeds are sown. This means that even nomad agriculturalists could grow crop to supply themselves with beer; the social and political conditions to be fulfilled are minimal.

The cultivation of grape vines, on the other hand, is a long term investment, with the vines standing vulnerable on the land for a few years before they yield fruit. Lasting peace and a stable allocation of land within society are hence pre-requisites for commercial wine growing. Thus a certain degree of state formation – political stability and peace – is an absolute pre-requisite for a profitable wine growing business.
History of Wine

History of Apple Cider

History of Apple Cider
There are two types of apple cider; sweet cider and hard cider. Sweet cider is simply the unfiltered juice of pressed apples. Hard cider is the fermented, unfiltered juice of pressed apples. There was a long history of apple cider.

During ancient times, Hebrews drank and called the drink “Shekar” and the Greeks drink “Sikera”. Both obtained by cooking apples with fermented juice. Before the Christian era, the various peoples of Europe had succeeded in producing beverage more or less similar to cider from a variety of fruit.

When the Romans arrived in England in 55 BC, they were reported to have found the local villagers drinking a delicious cider-like beverage made from apples.

By beginning of the ninth century, cider drinking was well established in Europe and a reference made by Charlemagne clearly confirms its popularity.

After the Norman conquest on 1066, cider consumption became widespread in England and orchards were established specifically to produce cider apples. In the 15th century, real progress was made in its presentation. Cider is a way of life.

In 1588, Julien LE PAULMIER, a Norman, publishes a treatise called “De Vino et pomaco”. It contributed to make cider better known and give it the place it deserves as a healthy drink, and praised its medicinal properties. The consumption of cider grew and grew but was then halted several times by permanent state of war.

During colonial era, hard apple cider was by far the most popular alcoholic beverage in America far more than whiskey, wine or beer. Hard cider became the traditional drink of New England not long after the first settlers arrived.

Apple cider continued in its popularity into the 1800s due in part to the efforts of the legendary Johnny Appleseed who planted many apple trees in the Midwest. As a result, apple cider brewing spread into that area of the country.
History of Apple Cider