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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| so who deserves the credit for inventing distilled alcoholic beverages? |
Fourteenth century Provence. Apparently.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| 1. the concept of alcohol is so old (how old?) that it would seem to predate the groups we're primarily interested in. |
But then, so is salt, surely.
| 2. most alcoholic beverages (beer, cider, wine) are actually very high-volume, never mind how high-value they might be. |
Still, they did shift boat-loads of amphorae about the place. And value is linked to exclusivity. Even today, you can't get wine from just any old place.
| 1. Making alcohol, though relatively simple, is still sufficiently technical for it to be a craft-skill possessed by travelling specialists. |
The quality of the product depends on the ingredients, though, so some drinks -- beer, say -- can be made anywhere while others have to be centred on decent vineyards... grapes are easy to crush, apples aren't... so they require different levels of investment in different things.
| 2. Alcoholic "mash" in various forms might be sufficiently high-value, low-volume to be the basis for travelling starter-kits. |
Yeast trade?
| One of our enduring unsolved mysteries is why the 'Celts' were so obsessed with peripatetic water sources. Is there something about such water (or perhaps in such water) that would be of interest to specialist alcohol-makers? |
First thought is that pure water sources would be most prized or other-worldly... but those are the ones that don't need boiling to be safe...
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| who ever heard of one culture borrowing a poetic metaphor from another?... yes, borrow the word... |
Sometimes they don't borrow the name but coin a poetic metaphor instead (in Lakota, frinstance). But then, maybe it only seems poetic to us: like "moving iron" for clock, "great/mysterious iron" for gun, "great/mysterious dog" for horse. {Something like that: on-line resources for Lakota are atrocious.} There is clearly a sense in which these are purely technical.
What if water-of-life is just a technical term that gets translated accordingly? (Including: not translated at all into English. Why is that?)
Is "water of life" too poetic? Life-water or living-water come across differently. Living water? The yeast is alive... and might well be seen to breathe. Or is it that alcohol looks like water but "bites back" as though it is alive? If it's pure enough, you'll see it evaporate and it'll feel cool -- a pretty impressive magic trick in the Middle East?
| Originally it was something to do with what?...saving life?...suggestions welcome. |
Flushing of the cheeks...? Warmth in your heart and washing over you... tingling skin...?
Is there an account of how alcohol interacts with the Humours?
Is cleaning with alcohol the secret of surgical success in the Middle East and India?
Water-of-life is only associated with distilled liquors, is it? Nothing to do with boiling water or getting pissed, just to do with the immediate experience of strong alcohol in or on you?
{Speaking of the strength, what was that about beer being 10 times stronger in the old days? Wot, beer at 50%??? Why didn't we cry "bollocks" before?}
| we don't know of any life-preserving properties that alcohol or distilled liquids in general have....do we? |
Not human-life-preserving, so far as I know, but alcohol's preservative action on fruits and stuff would have been known and important, wouldn't it? Look at the fuss about uncorrupted saints' bodies. And the rest of the relic industry, while you're at it: wood and bone fragments are fine, but what about blood, foreskins and any other fleshy remains?
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| is it vodka that looks like water, not whisk(e)y. |
Except in whiskey country.
| Peat is a natural antiseptic. |
I just heard that the old croft houses had thatched roofs and no chimneys: as with 'Anglo-Saxon' houses, the smoke diffuses through the thatch and keeps it dry. When they started using chimneys, the crofters got sick coz the thatch let in the damp (fungus spores and whatever...) and there was something about the smoke itself being (thought to be) 'healthy'. It may just be that peat smoke is antiseptic, too.
Actually, it's whiskey that is (peaty-)water-coloured.
---
Is (Celtic) woad the antiseptic that stays on the skin like (Celtic) alcohol doesn't?
It's possible the bog bodies had (sommat like) woad on them and it's possible they were deposited there in order to be preserved. If memory serves, Mike Parker-Pearson found some human remains that appeared to have been preserved/mummified by submersion in peaty water and reburied at a later time.
Whiskey is water of life as an analogue of/homage to/distillation of the real water of life in the peat bogs?
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It's not just the meaning of the word that is important, it's the feeling that goes with it .
Up here in the North we have cold, wet winters and we need inner warmth as well as whatever outer protection nature and the environment allows us. Sitting on the heather in a howling gale whisky means more than just the water of life - it means also that inner warmth just after the first and second sips which brings one out of that Celtic depression which only those who periodically have it really know what it is like.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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gallus gomeral wrote: | it means also that inner warmth just after the first and second sips which brings one out of that Celtic depression which only those who periodically have it really know what it is like. |
Depression, or melancholy, is endemic in many countries, not sure if it's weather-induced though the picture you paint of sitting on the heather numbed by whisky and Gaelic gales isn't so far removed from Russian men (not women?) staring gloomily into the bottom of a glass in some god-forsaken bar in the middle of the steppes.
Is it only northerners who drown their sorrows? Were spirits intended to 'lift the spirit' - was there some spiritual purpose associated with "water of life".
Do you know where dram originates? According to etymology on-line it's derived from Greek drakma (Latin drachma), ancient silver coin.
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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Whisky and water seem to be intimately associated. As an appreciator of the amber spirit I often read the history of the product I drink. In every case whether it be Irish, Scottish or American much is made about the purity of the water source used to produce the respective brews.
So much so that the deciding factor in situating a distillery is the natural purity of the water source. The grain is always shipped from somewhere else.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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And yet, when anybody does any proper testing, it turns out that the barrels that it's kept in while maturing is the decisive factor. And I should know because I've become a bit of an expert on alcohol since taking it up a month ago (as an antidote to giving up smoking). My favourite tipple is Liebfraumilch and Coca Cola Zero, half and half.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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1. the concept of alcohol is so old (how old?) that it would seem to predate the groups we're primarily interested in.
But then, so is salt, surely. |
Not comparable. We're looking for groups with something that will give them power of some kind. Now, if you turn up offering the idea of alcohol, then people will definitely give you the time of day and perhaps more; but if you turn up only with slightly better alcohol than what they've already got, you're just an ordinary trader. In other words your stuff will be bought but you won't be given anything by way of sensational privileges.
Salt is different. Salt can't ordinarily be acquired locally as salt (presumably it will be present sufficiently in local foodstuffs). So it is conceivable that you can turn up offering the monopoly supply of salt. Which in terms of taste, preservation and other processes might well give you an exalted position.
It is interesting that whereas we know alcohol to be a very ancient pastime, the word is a very modern one. This suggests that the alcoholic process might not have been thought of as alcoholic in earlier times. In other words the making of bulk alcoholic drinks -- beer, cider, wine -- might have been thought of as primarily for other purposes than getting drunk. It is well known that water will kill you but beer won't, and it's nutritious too. Only the 'fortified' drinks -- sherry, whiskey et al -- are there strictly for purposes of other than the mere quenching of thirst/hunger.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| One of our enduring unsolved mysteries is why the 'Celts' were so obsessed with peripatetic water sources. Is there something about such water (or perhaps in such water) that would be of interest to specialist alcohol-makers? |
All this reference to 'water of life' makes me wonder if the brew in question wasn't medicinal originally (but they always say it's good for you).
There are clearly different types of water, the influence of types of soil, vegetation, climate, etc. must have a bearing. Springs and mountain streams would be seen as purer than ponds and lakes; perhaps the sacredness of certain wells and (mineral?) springs was linked to economics.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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What chemical might be present in 'sacred springs' that would make all the difference? Guinness is good for you because they use Liffey water, their equivalent of the Thames. Let's not forget bad water might be the key.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| My favourite tipple is Liebfraumilch and Coca Cola Zero.... |
Now there's a coincidence. - - My favourite tipple is whisky and zero. (Sod the Coca Cola).
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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Although I don't normally take anything with my whisky, I once visited a whisky shop in Inverary, where the proprietor carried out a little demonstration. He poured a wee dram and asked me to take a sniff and then taste it. He then added a very small amount of spring water and asked me to do the same again. - - Believe it or not, the flavour - and even more so the aroma, were amplified by the addition of the water.
I still can't get my head round it. - - But I always fill a plastic bottle with spring water whenever I'm up in that neck of the woods.
By the way, the guy assured me it doesn't work with all whiskies.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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That's pretty neat! Spring water, not from a river, sounds safer. It does make you wonder though if the peatiness in the water was, as Dan pointed out, a kind of antiseptic perhaps to offset all the fermenting bits in the liquor as well as softening the harshness.
Whiskey-distillers, like the makers of Coca Cola, are intensely secret about their 'recipes'. But that may be a(nother) myth.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Did you mean this to be an ironic joke? If so, congratulations. I can never tell these days.
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