> Skip to content
FEATURED:
  • The Evolution of Race in Admissions
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
ADVERTISEMENT
News
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Copy Link URLCopied!
  • Print

New Volumes Explore the History of Alcohol

By  Peter Monaghan
October 15, 2004

LIQUID KNOWLEDGE: René Descartes was a drunken fart, and just as sloshed as Schlegel, or so some very wise men have proposed, so it is little wonder that intoxicants fascinate academics. But contemporary attitudes toward inebriation mean that “it’s hard for people to take the study of alcohol consumption seriously,” says Richard W. Unger, a professor of history at the University of British Columbia and the author of Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (University of Pennsylvania Press).

Mr. Unger says such attitudes stem from a failure to realize that brewed beverages were a necessity before the advent of dependable, clean water supplies or soft drinks.

We’re sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Please make sure your computer, VPN, or network allows javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net.

Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, or subscribe.

If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com

LIQUID KNOWLEDGE: René Descartes was a drunken fart, and just as sloshed as Schlegel, or so some very wise men have proposed, so it is little wonder that intoxicants fascinate academics. But contemporary attitudes toward inebriation mean that “it’s hard for people to take the study of alcohol consumption seriously,” says Richard W. Unger, a professor of history at the University of British Columbia and the author of Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (University of Pennsylvania Press).

Mr. Unger says such attitudes stem from a failure to realize that brewed beverages were a necessity before the advent of dependable, clean water supplies or soft drinks.

In early modern Europe, “beer was a normal part of daily life,” says Mr. Unger. With food often scarce, it was a nutritional godsend. It was also an all-purpose social lubricant, regarded with “neither suspicion nor awe,” he says. Consumption per person far exceeded today’s levels. For children as young as 4 years old, too, beer was a staple. Presumably they were fed weak brews, says Mr. Unger, but not too weak: “If the alcohol levels are low, the nutrition level is low, too.”

So was medieval life like living in a college fraternity today? Perhaps so, for beer was brewed in one in 10 houses, all by trial and error, as modern methods of chemistry had not yet been developed.

“You couldn’t walk down the street without smelling beer,” says Mr. Unger.

ADVERTISEMENT

The historical sources on beer are vast, Mr. Unger says, because “governments have regulated the production of alcohol since at least 3500 BC, and governments keep records.”

***

INSPIRED INTOXICANTS: Two other alcoholic beverages -- tequila and absinthe -- have also afforded today’s scholars a vast quantity of material for study.

The rich place of tequila in the culture and economy of Mexico is explored in Tequila: A Natural and Cultural History (University of Arizona Press), by Ana G. Valenzuela-Zapata, a professor of botany at the University of Guadalajara, and Gary Paul Nabhan, director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University. Mexico is home to 80 percent of the world’s agave plants, from which tequila has been made for 9,000 years for its nutritional, material, and medicinal properties.

The book’s authors distilled the testimony and tall tales of agave cultivators and brewers of the heady, pungent liquor. They found that tequila-making culture is puro mestizo; its mixed indigenous and Hispanic practices settled into place only well after the Spanish Conquest of 1519-21, with contributions from everyone from botanists to bootleggers to sailors.

ADVERTISEMENT

By the 1870s, the indigenous people of Mexico had so refined their cultivation practices that physiological ecologists of today have barely bettered them. Sadly, the dozens of varieties of agave plants from which tequila was traditionally made have been reduced to a monoculture of blue agaves.

Absinthe, too, has been watered down, in a sense. Once celebrated by artists and banned by governments, the bitter green liqueur acquired a notorious reputation. In the 20th century, the United States and most of Europe banned it from sale, but the “green fairy” is now making a comeback in Europe’s club culture, albeit in less potent formulas.

Publishing houses also see a market in the liqueur, as such volumes as The Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History, by Phil Baker (Grove Press, 2003), and Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), by Jad Adams, demonstrate.

The story of la fée verte that these books tell focuses on artists: Absinthe’s key ingredient, wormwood, has been implicated in inducing delirium, mania, and even death in renowned dissolutes like Arthur Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley, August Strindberg, Vincent van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso. They, and many others, bought the notion that absinthe, once a mere herbal tonic, could impart insights as clear as the drink itself is murky.

And perhaps it did -- before today’s wormwood-reduced versions appeared.

ADVERTISEMENT


http://chronicle.com Section: Research & Publishing Volume 51, Issue 8, Page A17

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Scholarship & Research
Peter Monaghan
Peter Monaghan is a correspondent for The Chronicle.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
    Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
  • The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
    The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
    Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
    Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2023 The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin