Humans have enjoyed fermented beverages for thousands of years. According to the experts, we started intentionally fermenting fruits and grains at around the same time agriculture began to take hold in the Middle East and Asia.
Some of the first vessels were used to ferment alcohol in Western China around 8,000 years ago, says Robert Dudley, a professor of biomechanics and comparative physiology at the University of California, Berkeley. And hawthorn berries, a tangy, nutrient-rich fruit that grows on trees and shrubs in Europe and Asia, made the world’s first booze, he says.
We’ve only been intentionally fermenting beverages for a small fraction of our history, but we evolved to metabolize alcohol before we were even human, says Dudley.
"Around 12 million years ago, when orangutans split from gibbons and primates were beginning to walk on land, a gene mutation allowed for a 12-fold increase in our ability to metabolize ...
