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First Cocktail 5,000 Years Old
Praxiteles writes "The first cocktail was...grog?! From the article: 'The first cocktail ever was made in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago, using wine, beer, apple juice and honey. Patrick McGovern defined the mix as "grog", an archaic drink that in the United States is sold as the Midas Touch'."
"Boonesfarm."
Reminder: Apple owns 1/255th of the internet.
Does it run linux or something?
Everyone know that grog be rum and water.
...Old "E" 8-Ball
"you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!"
Table-ized A.I.
"What is in that grog stuff anyway?" Guybrush Threepwood
If the traces of apple and honey weren't actually from alcohols based on those particular ingredients (apple brandy or mead, for example.) Other than that, though, it is pretty amazing how much they can find out about the diets of ancient peoples using a combination of archaeology and chemistry.
Going back to school for entry-level jobs?
and not "first cocktail"?
:(
Still not sure what that mini-article has to do with technology or news for nerds.
Grog is an alcoholic beverage made with water and rum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grog
All togeather now:
And it's all for me grog -- me jolly, jolly grog
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, I spent all me tin on the lassies drinkin' gin
Now across the western ocean I must wander
(Hat!) Where is me hat? (me what?)
Me noggin', noggin' hat (oh!)
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, the band is knocked about and the brim is all worn out
So me head is lookin' out for better weather
And it's all for me grog -- me jolly, jolly grog
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, I spent all me tin on the lassies drinkin' gin
Now across the western ocean I must wander
(Shirt!) Where is me shirt? (me what?)
Me noggin', noggin' shirt (oh!)
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, the sleeves are knocked about and the collar's all worn out
So me back is lookin' out for better weather
And it's all for me grog -- me jolly, jolly grog
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, I spent all me tin on the lassies drinkin' gin
Now across the western ocean I must wander
(Pants!) Where is me pants? (me what?)
Me noggin', noggin' pants (oh!)
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, the knees are knocked about and the seat is all worn out
So me arse is lookin' out for better weather
And it's all for me grog -- me jolly, jolly grog
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, I spent all me tin on the lassies drinkin' gin
Now across the western ocean I must wander
(Boots!) Where is me boots? (me what?)
Me noggin', noggin' boots (oh!)
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, the heels are knocked about and the toes is hangin' out
So me feets is lookin' out for better weather
And it's all for me grog -- me jolly, jolly grog
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, I spent all me tin on the lassies drinkin' gin
Now across the western ocean I must wander
(Bed!) Where is me bed?
Me noggin', noggin' bed
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Oh, I lent it to a whore, now the sheets they all are tore
So the springs are lookin' out for better weather
And it's all for me grog -- me jolly, jolly grog
It's all gone for beer and tobacco
Well, I spent all me tin on the lassies drinkin' gin
Now across the western ocean I must wander
you could only drink about 5 of these before ya started puking.. what kinda crap is that?
Am I reading /.? I thought I was looking at a pointless news source for a minute. If indeed this isn't /., I wll kill the person who changed my link.
Media Artist - 3dhansen.com
there was a grog's pizza at my University. It made me throw up too.
Well, I'm a nerd, and I like to get shithoused, so I appreciate it. Getting drunk is usually the only way for a nerd to loosen up, and who else but a nerd would drop this info while getting drunk at some bar or club. I personally can't wait to (not) impress my friends with this knowledge.
Thank god we've evolved to the point where we understand that you shouldn't mix wine and beer in a single brew. However this is a recent jump in evolution because "Malt Duck" (beer + wine) was still popular in the 70s and early 80s (my dad has the stories to prove it).
Now that they've found evidence of the ingredients of a 5000 year old drink, what makes them so sure its the "first ever"? Of course that's what they thought the last one was, however old (<5000 years) it might have been. This kind of arrogance really makes people look stupid. How about just "first in history"? That description would tell us as much about the drink as it might hint at how limited is our knowledge of history. I'll drink to that.
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make install -not war
D'oh,
This whole time I thought Grog was the screen name for http://www.lemis.com/grog/ *nix developer, Greg Lehy.
Squidward: "Spongebob, If I had a dollar for every brain you don't have, I'd have 1 dollar."
The Italian PM office's news site for Arab countries?! Who regularly checks that? (Other than those in Arab countries concerned with the news from the Italain PM's office...)
I'm not sure about other English speaking parts of the world, but Australians still refer to "grog" as a general term for alcoholic drinks.
Interestingly, dictionary.com quotes its origins as such
"After Old Grog, nickname of Edward Vernon (1684-1757), British admiral who ordered that diluted rum be served to his sailors, from grogram(from his habit of wearing a grogram cloak)."
Everyone knows that the first drink invented was the California Wine Cooler. :P
Midas Touch is made by Dogfish Head brewery in Delaware. It's an interesting drink, hard to catagorize.
More info can be found on their web site:
http://www.dogfish.com/beer/midastouch.cfm
Homer no function beer well without.
Whenever I read a story here that doesn't have to do with geeks or anything that matters (and how could it matter, given that it predates Linux?), I often notice that the editor in charge of the story is El-Zonko, The Most Zonkoriffic, Zonkalicious one -- -"ZONK" -- who is despised by the folks at anti-slash.org.
Go ahead and mod me down, idiot moderators.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Punch. Modern version of this, big coleman cooler, a bottle each of Everclear, Vodka, Whiskey, a case of beer, several cans of fruit punch, chunks of fruit, a bag or two of ice, close lid, shake, serve. Guarenteed to curdle your stomach
No one here gets out alive
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Cloth to wear
Cooked meat to eat
Beer to drink"
The important things never change.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Yesterday you said your birthday was coming up. We wanted to wish you a good one, because this will be your last birthday before you get Bonked and replaced by TripMaster Monkey as Games editor. We sure hope you enjoy it.
Oh, and speaking of TMM, we asked him what he was going to do for your birthday and he said ^_^
Love from the Slashdot crowd.
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Trolling all trolls since 2001.
Hey, the title of the site does not specify what kind of nerds it caters to -- sometimes us science/history nerds need news too. It's neat learning where things come from, whether those things are ancient cocktails or pieces of software.
:)
Plus the booze angle appeals to the average computer scientist/student
This is a reference to the list of how to make grog in the video game Monkey Island. While you don't have to mod it down mods cause it is funny I thought I'd point it out cause some of you are quick to mod things up without checking the validity.
Grog may not run linux....
But, linux runs on glogg (similar to grog?)...
See 'Woozy Numbat' release.
Every slashdot reader who has ever been to a military Dining-in is having flashbacks of the grog bowl right now.
t ory.htm#grog
http://www.ftmeademwr.com/activities/clubmead/his
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Netcraft confirms it!
Those old beer and wine recipes are quite different from their modern counterparts.
:)
The main differences would probably be the lack of effective filtration and the yeasts.
The filtration is probably the biggest difference.
We are used to beer and wine being relatively clear; in ye olde days the beers and wines were rather murky.
This has the interesting side effect that modern beers and wines are substantially less nutritious than their ancient counterparts.
The Egyptian beer (which built the pyramids) has been described as 'mildly alcoholic, liquid bread'
I've tried making wines and beers like these, they have a much lower alcohol content and are far more tasty.
People also tend to turn their noses up at them cos they look cloudy and have bits floating around. More for me! Yum!
And ahhh genuine Cornish scrumpy cider... even though I know they throw a dead rabbit into the vat, it still tastes good!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Games Should Be Like Female Orgasms
Ya know, I think you may have a point my friend. What qualifications does one need to become a /. editor anyway?
I love Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA. Excellent brew. I plan to pick up a 4-pack of it on my next trip to the store.
I've made this before. It definitely tastes different. I got over 10% alcohol in about two weeks. There was definitely a burn...Git 'r' done.
"History" means writings about things. Pre-history is what archaelogists uncover. Obviously there are tendrils of history that extend into the prehistorical period and vice-versa.
Back on topic, as soon as they learned how to make wine and store it in a cool place, they learned that it didn't spoil. They also learned that mixing water and wine made the water good to drink, and didn't make you sick.
Diluted wine was the soft drink of the ancient world. Make wine from fruit, then mix in fruit juice(s). Maybe add some herbs. A big part of the vintners work was probably knowing how to mix it.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
What are these scientists using to determine that a vessel was used to hold this cocktail? Do they have any proof that the vessel held the cocktail rather than being used to hold several different liquids over the years?
Plus who stores mixed drinks other than bloody marys? Mix them at the bar and drink them there.
Supporting the finding was the nearby discovery of several small papyrus umbrellas...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
It could have been a case of reusing a container without properly cleaning it, a practice that continutes with annoying roommates to this day!
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Despite the total lack of useful information in this article, does it strike any one as odd that they did not consider the possibility that the same container was used to hold multiple things over time?
It's not like they had industrial strength santizing dish washers 5000 years ago - over ten years of use, one could imagine an accumulation of residue inside such a container
I'm pretty sure that you have to have diluted rum somewhere in there for it to be grog.
History is written by the victors. Often long after the fact. For instance, most East Indian "history" was written by British conquerors about fictional events thousands of years in the past. Even the famous Roman historians often wrote retrospectives, sometimes "to the beginning of time". Today's archaeology is tomorrow's history.
As for "first cocktail", humans, like other animals, have long consumed rotten fruit laying beneath trees. Who knows when the first human ate two of those rotten, fermenting fruits in one fistful? Beyond that, who knows what humans did in the deserts in the middle of the most anciently populated regions, like the Sahara, Saudi peninsula, Gobi?
To treat history as a science, we must accept its limitations as our own. We can't know the "first" instance of any human innovation, certainly ones so close to nature, at least not until we get all the way back through hundreds of thousands of years towards our prehuman (and, presumably, nontechnological) condition. Unless archaelogists can somehow prove nonexistence of "prior art", even just circumstantially (eg. "no prior artists"), we can't make any claims about true "firsts", except in the scope of "history" itself. Tomorrow's archaelogy is next year's "new history".
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make install -not war
http://www.groggle.com.au/ Woo Hoo!
Found nearby, a toilet bowl carved out of stone and the world's oldest recipe for a hangover cure.
And the first hangover was 4999 years, 364 days ago.
I'd also like to add that some nerds appreciate all knowledge and wisdom and are considerably more versatile at trades other than being a computer nerd. Those ubernerds are probably called "boss" by the rest--if they've made it out of their parent's basement that is...
And hey, if you don't know where you came from, it's hard to know where you're going, right? Now where did I put my martini?
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
err, Budweisers.
What do you think those Clydesdales are really for anyway?
Gawd, those things make me want to root for Osama and his Islamic vision of the world. He can kill all the gays he wants. He can put every woman in a burkha and chains. That's all OK as long as he gets rid of Budweiser.
Hulk Lemon Drop Martini
Possibly available October 1st via these fine distributors
a fine product of Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats, the Delaware's first brew-pub opened in the resort beach community of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Grog was the drink of choice in the much-beloved Escape From Monkey Island LucasArts adventure. Definitely very nerdy.
Clearly before your time.
Wasn't Grog a muppet?
"The Internet is made of cats."
(First rule of Slashdot: Do not discuss Slashdot, itself, or you will be off-topic by definition.)
So, umm, "Grog".... I wonder if locust were used instead of olives or lime???
I suggest you read Slashdot
Yet, it was somehow important enough for you to comment on it.
I love your input! Please do it more!
... they'll discover a 5000 year-old hangover cure.
This sig is false.
A cocktail is a mixture or a liquor and a liquer, with possibly other additions. For example, gin or vodka and dry vermouth is a martini. Tequila and triple sec with lime juice is a margarita. Since distilled alcoholic beverages are not know before the eight or ninth centuries, whatever this was, it wasn't a cocktail. doesn't mean it couldn't knock you on your ass, however.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
maybe they just unearthed containers from an old prison where they were making pruno.
An analysis of one old pot does nothing to prove the prevalence of such a drink.
Patrick McGovern defined the mix as "grog", an archaic drink that in the United States is sold as the Midas Touch
:) I think theirs is largely rum.
Trader Vic's restaurant chain sells it as Grog. More specifically, Navy Grog, so it's not confused with the Mesopotamian version of the drink.
5,000 year old pool of petrified vomit discovered in Europe. Details at 6...
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
I think this has inspired a new sig for me. "Booze, helping nerds get laid for 5,000 years."
"Does your computer have IP on it?"
Hey don't make fun of grog. It's not ready cause it's not version 2.0 yet... oh you mean the drink. Nevermind.
so, is barman older the whore now?
Oh... I always thought my dependence on booze somehow made me cooler than the average compsci student. (A group, which as far as I can tell has NO IDEA how to have fun)
I can see it now - history channel is gonna grab this up like candy so they don't have to keep showing WWII reruns. Ancient Chinese Drunks Ancient Egyptian Drunks Ancient Mesopotamiam Drunks and a whole series.....
"Potpourii doesn't taste as good as it smells." - Dark_Link2135
Who's to say this archaelogist didn't find a bucket that a drunk sailor puked in. After eating apples and honey and drinking beer, he throws up in an empty wine jug and tosses it onto a riverbank. We find it 5000 years later and think it's a drink? Great science....
Gravity appears to be a force proportional to the observed rest mass of an object, reliant upon current measurement technology, which of course is almost certain to change as we uncover more information in the future.
No, instead we say things like, "Gravity is proportional to the masses of the two objects in the gravitational relationship" or "Gravity has an inverse squared relationship" or "The rest mass of an ojbect..."
Get it? Science is authoritative exactly because it, and it's practitioners, know that newer discoveries will continue to overturn past knowledge. If science did not do so, then to speak authoritatively would be arrogance. Instead it is the only way things work!
If this recipe is wrong, then this statement gets forgotten, amended, or ridiculed. That's all there really is to it.
GPL Deconstructed
... groggy after I drank wine and beer, and ate honey apple pies.
w00t
Science is authoritative...
Science is authoritative when there is a strong confidence that the theory is correct (such that there is with gravity). Where there isn't that confidence, scientists regularly disclaim their statements, using terminology like "we believe...", or "it appears...". Few scientists immediately proclaim absolute based upon preliminary, or incomplete, information. "Bumble Bees can't fly! News at 11".
This is especially true of archaeology, a field where it is pretty difficult to place vague things like "firsts". To claim a first for something as generalized as an alcoholic drink is pretty questionable. Of course archaeology, like all other fields, has people who want attention.
Wow we learned how to have a good time fast. I thought the earth was only created 6000 years ago. Do you think Noah liked it shaken or stirred?
Which implies a mixed drink. This sounds more like it was brewed with the given combination, a sort of cross between cyser (apple mead) and braggot (barley mead).
Personally, I never use finings for filtration. If I leave the demijon with airlock sitting for a week, it is usually pretty settled. Not totally - a friend of mine took a batch of my mead to the LRP Summerfest one year, and it was pretty cloudy. Apparently it was still pretty good, though.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
See http://www.zimaxxx.com/index.aspx for more on this disgusting yet popular concoction.
That should be egg whites.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Some slashdotters might find this holiday to be enjoyable: International Talk Like a Pirate day. September 19th, only one week away!
www.talklikeapirate.com
Modern liquors are often aged in barrels that were first used for other things - Scotch whiskies aged in used port or sherry wine barrels, for instance. Today it's done to make subtle changes in the flavor and justify charging outrageous prices for exquisite-tasting liquor. Maybe 5000 years ago it was the same thing, or maybe they just found that their beer fermented faster if they made it in used wine-jugs, or tasted better with a bit of apple-core added, or maybe they were just slobs who didn't clean the barrels after they'd drunk the contents...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Various Google-ized sources indicate that Iraq usually only gets freezing temperatures in the mountains or colder-than-usual winters, so they probably didn't make that much of it either, but it's a possible trade product to find there.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grog says it was originally a rum&water mixture, which was replaced the previous beer and brandy rations that were used to preserve water. Eventually it got citrus and spices and such added to it. It really served two purposes - adding rum to the water to keep the water from getting scummy, and watering down the rum so the sailors didn't get quite as drunk on their daily rum ration...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
What grog = rum + water meade = what u just called grog.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Pangalactic gargleblaster, anyone?
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
What, archaeology and history don't qualify as geeky?
Science journalism often leaves a great deal to be desired. I suppose the problem is that anyone with sufficient knowledge of science to report on it reliably, is busy actually doing science. Those who can, do; those who can't, report. Meh.
Esacpe From Monkey island! BAH! 3D Accelerated Rubbish...
I think you'll find Secret of monkey Island was the true original... or was that before your time?
Clearly this is nothing more than an ad trying to pretend it's a story. WTF?
Dogfish Head Brewery, based out of Delaware, has been working in conjunction with this professor from U Penn. They sell a beer based on an analysis of an ancient Greek brew. Grapes, spices, grain, honey, etc.
They are currently developing an ancient Chinese recipe as well.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Grog is still sold under that name throughout much of Europe, although most of the versions I ran into were Rum, tea, lemon, and sugar. Delicious stuff... pretty much constituted my drinking throughout the choir tour. Only catch is that you never really knew how much rum you were going to get in your grog so a single drink could be everything from vaguely rum-flavored tea to a mug that would leave you staggering away from the burger place.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
If it weren't for women, there would have been no need to invent alcoholic beverages.
Bob Marley said it best: "No woman, no get shitfaced drunk"
Grogs purpose was multifold. The rum kept the sailors happy, it also kept the water potable at sea, also the lime juice was a source of vitamin C, to prevent scurvey. Rum keeps water and lime fresh, water keeps the sailors from getting too drunk and keeps them hydrated, and the lime added flavor and nutrients.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Now I ain't no student,
of ancient culture
Before I talk
I should read a book.
But there's one thing that I do know,
There's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia.
Read any good sonnets lately?
NT
The Secret Of Monkey Island was the first thing that came to my mind when I read this! Heh-heh. I'm sure some of you remember the "Spitting Contest" from Monkey Island 2 - LeChucks Revenge where you mixed the blue and yellow grogs to make green (Like Largo's spit) once you had a fake ID to actually buy grog from the bar... which was a temporary library card. "Name? Um.... Smith." ;)
Interestingly, they found evidence of rice, grapes, and honey. In this study, it is identified that the fermentation of grapes may be inferred from a by-product of grape fermentation (i.e., tartaric acid); however, the presence of honey is only inferred from compounds that point to the existence of beeswax.
in other words, although we can show that grapes were probably fermented, we have no way of saying anything other than "honey was present". For all we know, it was a rice mead with grapes!
(OK... I'm a little biased toward mead), but...
the original article (from Italy) assumes that it was "wine", not mead or hard cider that was found... and that it is the "oldest" at 5000 B.C.; no bias toward the wine industry, eh?
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
Actually, we don't think this one was the first. Perhaps the 4th or 5th before his lights went out, based on the number of broken mug parts found near the fireplace.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?ene wsid=23090/
Rum and coke is too damned sweet. It's like drinking syrup. Use half coke and half water instead of straight coke, and there you have a grog and coke. Now you can taste the rum (which admittedly is only a good thing if it's decent rum to begin with, like Appleton's), and it doesn't taste like sucking down syrup.
Grog and coke. Standard on my ship.