Ancient Brew Masters

The desire to relax and celebrate with the help  intoxicating drinks made by ancient brew masters and wine makers is  as old as human history. Right from  Genesis where Noah is depicted as enjoying his  wine after the flood down through the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Greek Scriptures or New Testament there are frequent references to wine and intoxicating  liquors.

Two of these references  are at Deuteronomy 14: 26  where God spoke of enjoying wine and intoxicating liquor and Luke 1:15 where he showed that John the Baptist should not touch "wine or strong drink" at all as a special evangelist going in advance of  the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ.

This was not a blanket prohibition against the consumption of such drinks, however. Jesus, himself on at least one occasion during his  earthly lifetime, turned water into wine during a wedding feast and the Apostle Paul on at least one other occasion suggested to Timothy that he take a little wine, "for his stomach's sake."

Just what Luke meant by "strong drink" is unclear, but certainly the Jews and other peoples had a wide variety of types of alcoholic beverages other than grapes.  Other drinks were made other fruits such as dates, figs, apples, and pomegranates as well as honey. He apparently did not have in mind anything like the gins, vodka, or whiskeys we enjoy today though.

The forerunners of our Seagram's and other distillers of grains and other crops to make such beverages were a much later development in man's history, but the early Jewish and other peoples of the Middle East, such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Philistines did  consume beers made from crops such as barley.

They all enjoyed their refreshing beers. Archaeologists have found evidence of this in the form of paintings  of brewers in Egyptian tombs, artifacts showing Babylonian nobles as well as commoners enjoyed their beer on a daily basis. And in addition to these discoveries  searchers  have found jugs with strainer spouts to prevent Philistine drinkers from swallowing  the barley husks as they drank in archaeological digs through modern day Palestine.

So the idea of relaxing and celebrating with the help of  wines and other alcoholic beverages has a long history starting with the ancient Brew Masters such as Noah and others of his era.