Drink (77 page)

From a cultural perspective, $150 is a small price to pay for the reintroduction to Westerville of a substantial chunk of heritage. Alcohol has been one of the building blocks of Western civilization and continues to be an important ingredient of both our diet and our culture. While its contribution to nutrition is often overlooked, it is nonetheless significant. In 2004, average American per capita consumption of alcohol was 2.24 gallons, equating to 67,524 calories every year, or about 7.4 percent of each drinker’s annualized RDI (recommended intake of calories). In addition to sustenance, alcohol also provides an aesthetic experience—drinking is an affair of the palate, as much as of the stomach or the head: A chilled beer, a glass of fine wine, a shot of bourbon, all stimulate the senses in unique and pleasing ways. Moreover, the power of alcoholic drinks to lessen inhibitions and facilitate self-expression, continues to associate their consumption with friendship, and artists in every medium still pay homage to their liquid muses. Finally, there is yet a place for intoxication in modern society. We resort to the bottle when our passions are high—we drink to celebrate, and to drown our sorrows.

Attempts to ban alcohol in the West have all, like the noble experiment of Prohibition, failed. As the legend of Bacchus illustrates, drink must be accommodated within society, for, like the Greek god, it also has a dark side, and if its production and consumption are forced underground, chaos results: Witness recent conditions in Russia, where excessive drinking has had a substantial negative impact on the well-being of an entire nation. However, in most countries with long-standing drinking traditions, moderate tippling has a positive effect on health. Although the mechanisms by which alcohol increases longevity when taken in small, if regular, doses have yet to be determined, its beneficial side effects are readily apparent: It eases the stresses of coexistence, it helps us to relax when we are tense, it restores life’s luster when we feel sad.

There seems to be a universal desire to add ceremony to the consumption of alcohol—to acknowledge that under its influence, drinkers will let down their guard and say what they really think. In consequence, most cultures have specific phrases or words to accompany the raising of a glass, whose usual sentiment is to wish good health to the drinker and his or her companions. Whatever your background, whatever your poison, let me propose a toast for sharing the journey of this inspirational, if equivocal, fluid through history:
Salud
,
Kan pei
,
Chin-chin
,
Prost
,
Yum sing
,
Skol
,
Slainte
,
À votre santé
,
Na zdrowie
, The king o’er the water, or just plain Cheers!

NOTES

1 Ancient beverages:
Ancient Wine, The Search for the Origins of Viniculture
, Patrick E. McGovern, Princeton University Press, 2003.

2 Jiahu, “China”:
Fermented beverages of pre- and proto-historic China, Cheng, Zhijun Zhao, Changsui Wang Moreau, Alberto Nuñez, Eric D. Butrym, Michael P. Richards, Chen-shan Wang, Guangsheng Fa, Patrick E. McGovern, Juzhong Zhang, Jigen Tang, Zhiqing Zhang, Gretchen R. Hall, Robert A., published online December, 8, 2004.

5 “Enkidu knew nothing”:
The Epic of Gilgamesh
, Trans. Maureen Gallery Kovacs, Stanford University Press, 1989.

8 “vineyard of the red house”:
Gods, Men and Wine
, William Younger, The Wine and Food Society Limited, London, 1966, p. 33.

8 Egyptian beer:
“Beer from the early dynasties (3500-3400 B.C.) of Upper Egypt, detected by archaeochemical methods,” Salwa A. Maksoud, M. Nabil El Hadidi, and Wafaa Mahrous Amer,
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
, Vol. 3 No. 4, December 1994.

5 Heirakonpolis interactive dig online at:
www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/
.

9 Skara Brae:
“Barley, Malt, and Ale in the Neolithic,” Merryn Dineley,
BAR International Series,
Vol. 1213, 2004.

10 Mayan drinking:
The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Mayan Art
, Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, Thames & Hudson, London, 1992.

13 “Wine is like fire”:
II 4
Deipnosophists Athenaeus
, Trans C. D. Yonge, London, 1854.

13 “There is a wine which
Saprian
”:
1 Yonge, I 52.

13 “drive men out of their senses”:
1 Yonge

15 “But even so it was the remark and not its target that became notorious”:
1
Courtesans and fishcakes, the consuming passions of classical Athens
, James Davidson, Fontana Press, London, 1998, p. 151.

16 “If with water you fill up your glasses”:
Yonge, II 9.

16 “But that water is undeniably nutritious”:
Yonge, II 26.

16 “Wine lays bare”:
Yonge, II 6.

16 “so that it may not be discovered what sort of a person you really are, and that you are not what you pretend to be”:
Yonge, X 31.

17 “This is the monument of that great drinker”:
Yonge, X 48.

17 “and in every kind of luxury and amusement”:
Diodorus of Sicily, quoted in
Bacchus
,
A Biography
, Andrew Dalby, The British Museum Press, London, 2003, p. 51.

19 “ritual dance of the tragos”:
Ibid., p. 81.

20 “When a man has reached the age of forty”:
Plato Laws, from Yonge.

23 Ithyphalloi:
Wine in the Ancient World
, Charles Seltman, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London, 1957, p. 150.

24 “a man of violent temper”:
Yonge, X 46.

24 “If the wine be moderately boiled”:
Yonge, X 34.

25 “If an important decision is to be made, they discuss the question when they are drunk”:
Herodotus, The Histories
, Penguin Classics edition, Trans. Aubrey de Selincourt, London, 2003, p. 62.

25 “wanted the tales of the god’s wanderings”:
quoted in
Alexander the Great
, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, London, 1994.

26 “Of those who entered for the prize”:
Yonge, X 48.
Euripides and Dionysus:
R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Cambridge University
Press, 1948.

29 “care of armies”:
The History of Rome
, Livy, Book 39.13.

29 “at Rome, women”:
Natural History
, Pliny, Trans. John F. Healy, Penguin Classics, 1991.

31 “Whither, O Bacchus”:
Horace,
Odes
III xxv,
Odes and Epistles
, Trans. C. E. Bennett, Loeb Classical Library, 1978.

31 “from the moment Liber”:
Horace, Epistles XIX.

31 “Let Moderation Reign”:
Horace, Odes xxvii.

31 “It unlocks secrets”:
Horace,
Epistles
V.

33 “There’s not a man been born”:
1
The Satyricon
, Petronius, Trans. William Arrowsmith, Meridian Classics, New York, 1959, p. 55.

33 “assumed the entire garb of Bacchus”:
Athenaeus
, Trans. Charles Burton Gulick, William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1927: IV, 148.
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella: On Agriculture
(1954), Translated by E. S. Forster and Edward H. Heffner (Loeb Classical Library).

34 “Wines from Pompeii”:
Pliny, p. 70.

34 “without putting on a stitch of clothing”:
Ibid.

36 “Whatever Fame sings of”:
1
Epigrams
, Martial Trans. Walter C. A. Ker, Loeb Classical Library, 1979.

36 “Daedalus, now thou art”:
Epigrams,
Martial VIII.

37 “They gained so rapidly in corpulence”:
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities.

37 “liquor drunk in the houses of the rich”:
Gulick IV 151.

38 “savage people of great bravery”:
XV Book II De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar, Trans. W. A. MacDevitt, Project Gutenberg etext.

38 “a liquor prepared”:
Tacitus,
Germania
, The Oxford Translation Revised— Project Gutenberg etext.

39 “Who the first inhabitants”:
Tacitus,
Agricola
the Oxford Translation Revised-Project Gutenberg etext.

40 Vindolanda:
vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/
.

44 Justin Martyr:
Apologia
, Trans. Rev. S. Thelwall, online at
www.earlychristianwritings.com
.

45 Clement—pedagogia:
Book II Chapter II, online from the Catholic Encycolpedia,
www.newadvent.org
.

48 Early Christian ritual:
Roots of Christianity
, Michael Walsh, Grafton Books, London, 1986.

50 “The public halls were bright, with lofty gables,”:
Exeter Book
: R. Hamer, London, 1970, a choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse.

51 barbarian invasions:
The Fall of the Roman Empire,
Peter Heather, Macmillan, London, 2005
Ausonius,
with an English translation, Hugh G. Evelyn-White, W. Heinemann, London, 1919.

53 “Drinc heil”:
1
Beer and Britannia an Inebriated History of Britain,
Peter Haydon, Sutton Publishing Limited, Stroud, 2001, p. 20.

54 beor:
“Old Englsh Beor,” Christine E. Fell, Leeds Studies in English, New Series Vol. VIII 1975.

56 “So his mind turned”:
Beowulf
, a verse translation, Seamus Heaney, W. W. Norton & Company Inc., New York, 2002.

58
hemina
—
Benedictine rule: XL-of the quantity of food and drink for Benedictine Rules see
www.osb.org
.

58 “Ale is drunk around Loch Cuain”:
1
Beer, the Story of the Pint,
Martyn Cornell, 2003, Headline Book Publishing, London, p. 29.

59 “If anyone because of drunkenness”:
Gildas, de excidio,
Trans. J. A. Giles, G. Bell & Sons, London, 1891.

59 “They had placed in their midst”:
1
The Barbarian’s Beverage-a History of Beer in Ancient Europe,
Max Nelson, Routledge, Oxford, 2005, p. 95.

61 Colloquy of Aelfric:
Garmonsway, G. N., ed.
Colloquy. Ælfric.
2nd ed. 1939, University of Exeter, 1999.

61 “pregnant women should not drink to excess”:
Fell, p. 86

63 “It was the custom at that time”:
Heirnskringla, the Ynglinga Saga,
Snorri Sturlson, Trans, Samuel Laing, London, 1844, 41.

65 “How I wish”:
Abu Nuwa: A Genius of Poetry,
Philip F. Kennedy, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2005 p. 60.

65 “perfect physical specimins”:
“Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah,” James E. Montgomery, online at
www.uib.no/jais/v003/montgo.1.pdf
.

67-68 Koran references:
2;219—“They ask concerning wine and gambling
(5;90) “Strong drink, games of chance, idols and divining arrows
78;31: “As for the righteous”
47:15) “rivers of wine, delicious to drinkers”

69 “celebrated for refusing”:
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
Vol. 5, Edward Gibbon, Everyman’s Library Edition, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. London, p. 334.

69 “Drink the wine, though forbidden”:
Kennedy, p. 15.

70 “I wish that I were the Eucharist”:
Ibid, p. 56.

70 “Quick to your morning drink”:
Ibid., p. 61.

70 “she is so antique that”:
Ibid., p. 71

71 “A wine both frisky and quiet”:
Ibid., p. 66.

73 “Tonight I will make a tun of wine”:
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,
Trans. Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs, Allen Lane, London, 1979, p. 77.

73 “They say there is Paradise with the houris and the River”:
Ibid., p. 67.

74 “Vladimir listened to them”:
The Story of Wine,
Hugh Johnson, Mandarin, London, 1989, p. 99.

77 “as holy writ saith”:
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville,
Project Gutenberg etext.

78 “The people of the region”:
Alcohol in western society from antiquity to 1800,
Gregory Austin, 1985, Clio Press Ltd, Oxford, p. 94.

79 “the largest vine-growing establishment”:
Johnson, p. 138.

79 “send ships forthwith”:
Alcohol, Sex and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe,
A. Lynn Martin, Palgrave, Hampshire, 2001, p. 6.

82 “almost every other household”:
Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World,
Judith M. Bennet, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 19.

84 “in the public house to die”:
Wine, Women and Song,
John Adddington Symonds, Chatto & Windus, London, 1925.

86 “When by law or custom of the Church men fast”:
Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England,
G. R. Owst, Cambridge University Press, 1933, p. 435.

87 “paler than that of the infirm”:
Ibid., p. 443.

87 “Thou arte lord of great power”:
Ibid., p. 310.

88 “By God’s blood, this day is unhappy!”:
Ibid., p. 423.

88 “Hick the horse dealer and Hugh the needle seller”:
Piers Plowman
Passus 5, Trans. Donald and Rachel Attwater, Ed. Rachel Attwater, Everyman’s Library, J. M. Dent, London, 1957.

Margery Kirkbride James,
Studies in the Medieval Wine Trade,
Ed. Elspeth