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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.
"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?
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)."
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.
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
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.
Supporting the finding was the nearby discovery of several small papyrus umbrellas...
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
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
Actually, the spelling with two g's is more correct. "Grogg" is just a wrapper. The full name, of course, is "Grogg Vorbis."
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.