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Nothingtoseehere posted:Current wines are around 8%-12%, and complete fermentation is about 15%. So it's stronger than modern wine, but not a huge amount. Watering it down 4 parts to 1 would give you a 3% abv drink. It's possible they were doing a different form of fermentation, too. I've been super into sake recently and reading books about it, the brewing process they use is able to get up to 20% just through careful control, no modern transgenic yeasts or whatever. Then it's typically watered down for bottling. A standard bottle of sake and bottle of wine are the same volume but that extra 3-4% of alcohol hits noticeably harder. The first time that happened to me I was thinking about whether there was something to it and the watering down of ancient wines. (I still think it was largely that getting noticeably drunk was considered uncouth so if you wanted to be at an all night drinking party, watering down was required)
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Nov 4, 2021 17:03
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It sounded like the ancient Romans and Greeks wanted to get loose and happy while nowadays we valorize getting blotto. Alternately, because of all of you rummies marinating yourself in uncut wine like barbarians your entire life, you need larger amounts in order to once again capture that happy buzz.
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Nov 4, 2021 17:08
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Thinking that watering down wine means people won't be getting wasted is like thinking you can't get drunk off beer
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Nov 4, 2021 17:10
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Dunno what you're drinking but I can put away a whole lot more beer than wine before I feel it. Unless it's those nutty 14% stouts or whatever.
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Nov 4, 2021 17:14
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Boatswain posted:Sorry if this has come up before, but I'm interested in North Africa (especially what is now Algeria) in the period of say 700BCE to 500CE. I'd appreciate recommendations for both primary sources (translated) and good secondary material. TIA Can you be any more specific about what you are looking for? That's a huge topic, and that time frame covers many different empires and cultures in that region.
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Nov 4, 2021 17:14
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Ras Het posted:Thinking that watering down wine means people won't be getting wasted is like thinking you can't get drunk off beer It just means you won’t get wasted as quickly.
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Nov 4, 2021 17:19
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Nessus posted:It sounded like the ancient Romans and Greeks wanted to get loose and happy while nowadays we valorize getting blotto. Alternately, because of all of you rummies marinating yourself in uncut wine like barbarians your entire life, you need larger amounts in order to once again capture that happy buzz. Eubulus’ Dionysus posted:I mix three kraters only for those who are wise. Antique parties got pretty lively by the sound of things, but mostly once the people with good manners had gone home
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Nov 4, 2021 17:23
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skasion posted:Antique parties got pretty lively by the sound of things, but mostly once the people with good manners had gone home yeah I think ancient greek writers developed strong aspirational opinions about how much is the Correct amount to drink because people were routinely drinking far more than that, not because there was some cultural norm of moderation that was widely observed
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Nov 4, 2021 17:29
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Things can be both culturally unacceptable and commonly done.
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Nov 4, 2021 17:32
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most things culturally unacceptable are, really. culture wouldn't need to police it otherwise
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Nov 4, 2021 17:50
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CrypticFox posted:Can you be any more specific about what you are looking for? That's a huge topic, and that time frame covers many different empires and cultures in that region. General overview, interaction with the rest of the Med, economics and trade, Greek 'colonialism' and Roman dominion et cetera.
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Nov 4, 2021 17:51
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I'm hardly an expert, but I think the problem you're going to run into is that we have basically no information on the area until Rome starts sticking it's nose in there circa 200 BC. Presumably there were local Moorish polities, and Phoenicians/Carthaginians coming and going, but we barely know anything about Carthage let alone what's going on in Numidia and Mauretania. Even once they become Roman provinces I get the sense it was a real backwater; a productive one mind you, but not a place people were talking about.
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Nov 4, 2021 18:57
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Ancient Greek philosophers were not the average dude and though their writings obviously reflect the society in which they lived they do so in the same way that Maddox reflected the culture of the early 2000s despite internet edgelords like him being a tiny minority.
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Nov 4, 2021 20:01
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Plato would absolutely wreck Maddox in a fight though.
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Nov 4, 2021 20:02
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Grand Fromage posted:Dunno what you're drinking but I can put away a whole lot more beer than wine before I feel it. Unless it's those nutty 14% stouts or whatever. Me too, but I still get wasted like a barbarian.
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Nov 4, 2021 20:51
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Current wines are around 8%-12%, and complete fermentation is about 15%. So it's stronger than modern wine, but not a huge amount. Watering it down 4 parts to 1 would give you a 3% abv drink. That’s about what is largely popular for cheap beers, that 3-4% range, “sessionable.”
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Nov 4, 2021 20:56
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Ola posted:Me too, but I still get wasted like a barbarian. Bet you're wearing pants while you do it too.
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Nov 4, 2021 20:58
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NikkolasKing posted:I figure this is as good a place to ask this as any Yeah. I've seen some studies that looked at (peacetime) murder rates in the late middle ages in Sweden (using written records), and they put the annual murder rate around 30/100,000. That's about the same as some of the more violent parts of the world today (e.g. the national rate of South Africa or Colombia, or the regional rate in Detroit.) Also, if you think about it in terms of the average person's social circle of a few hundred people, the odds that even a single person in that social circle would be murdered were actually pretty small. For sure there was more murder than today, and I'm sure it would be the talk of the town, with an execution or two per year, but it was far from a common part of life.
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Nov 4, 2021 21:05
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Fermentation alone can reach alcohol levels between 20-30%. Wine-based spirits are high alcohol wines that have been flavored in various ways to mimic the flavor of proper liquor. This a workaround many bars use in places were they can easily get a beer & wine license but not a liquor license (for example - Florida). There’s no reason to assume that ancient fermenters weren’t hitting those higher marks as well.
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Nov 4, 2021 22:01
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Mr. Nice! posted:Wine-based spirits are high alcohol wines that have been flavored in various ways to mimic the flavor of proper liquor. This a workaround many bars use in places were they can easily get a beer & wine license but not a liquor license (for example - Florida). Maybe slightly off topic but I have never heard of this, do you know somewhere I can read more? I'm finding brands but not a description of the process. Sounds interesting.
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Nov 4, 2021 22:08
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Grand Fromage posted:Bet you're wearing pants while you do it too. I do, fair complaint, but they're bursting at the seams from sofa wear
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Nov 4, 2021 22:11
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FreudianSlippers posted:Ancient Greek philosophers were not the average dude and though their writings obviously reflect the society in which they lived they do so in the same way that Maddox reflected the culture of the early 2000s despite internet edgelords like him being a tiny minority.
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Nov 4, 2021 22:13
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Grand Fromage posted:Maybe slightly off topic but I have never heard of this, do you know somewhere I can read more? I'm finding brands but not a description of the process. Sounds interesting. I’m on my phone so you can probably find something as fast as I might. A bar in town used to use wine based spirits before they got their full liquor license. They do taste pretty close to the real liquor they imitate, but they’re more syrupy and sweeter. Instead of gin, it tasted like a gin liqueur. I don’t know the details of the fermentation process, but it’s definitely not distilled otherwise it couldn’t be sold with a beer/wine license.
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Nov 4, 2021 22:13
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Mr. Nice! posted:Fermentation alone can reach alcohol levels between 20-30%. Wine-based spirits are high alcohol wines that have been flavored in various ways to mimic the flavor of proper liquor. This a workaround many bars use in places were they can easily get a beer & wine license but not a liquor license (for example - Florida). As far as I can tell, the "turbo yeast" and "super yeast" strains necessary to get to those alcohol levels are a comparatively recent invention. As in, getting to 25% ABV from fermentation alone wasn't even possible before the 1990s. These are highly-selected strains, that required sterile technique and knowledge of microbial fermentation to produce. I would love if someone knows more about this, but I don't believe anyone was actively breeding yeast much before the 1800s. This goes especially for wine, where it just uses the wild yeast present on the grape skins (even today). And wild yeast sure as hell ain't going above 15%.
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Nov 4, 2021 22:18
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Adding yeast to poo poo is about as old as ale: Rome encountered a lot of people North and West of them skimming the foam off their ale brews and putting it into bread or other ales, mainly to give them flavour (and to make the bread rise). I don't know whether they'd select for certain qualities in their ale foams, or even try mixing them. Still, I don't think it's entirely impossible to stumble upon yeast breeding without actually knowing it's a living thing if you're already in the business of using ale foam as an ingredient.
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Nov 4, 2021 23:00
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Mr. Nice! posted:Fermentation alone can reach alcohol levels between 20-30%. Wine-based spirits are high alcohol wines that have been flavored in various ways to mimic the flavor of proper liquor. This a workaround many bars use in places were they can easily get a beer & wine license but not a liquor license (for example - Florida). I have to imagine freeze distillation (as in eg applejack) goes back to prehistory anywhere it gets cold enough outside in winter, too.
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Nov 4, 2021 23:01
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As far as I am aware there is no evidence of any ancient alcoholic beverage with a high alcohol content. If you know of one post a link, because as someone mentioned the yeast strains necessary for such a thing are fairly recent, and while freeze distillation is a thing I havent seen that backdated that far out. Edit: Some light bathroom browsing of Wikipedia suggest that distillation has been around awhile which means that high alcohol content beverages could also be around for awhile. The rice wine page suggest they get up to around 20% naturally. I'll admit I haven't done a deep literature dive of it but seems odd that this doesn't come up more in archaeology of alcohol stuff. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Nov 4, 2021 |
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Nov 4, 2021 23:07
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If ancient peoples want to get absolutely blasted it's not like they can't just eat the drat magic mushrooms.
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Nov 4, 2021 23:14
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Azza Bamboo posted:If ancient peoples want to get absolutely blasted it's not like they can't just eat the drat magic mushrooms. True, and to paraphrase another SA poster, plain ol' Cannabis spp. can get you so high you fall into the Shadow Realm.
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Nov 5, 2021 00:52
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NikkolasKing posted:Her sources for those bits appear to be: Seems weird to start a piece attacking the legitimacy of medieval statistics then rely heavily on those statistics to make your point. As to the accuracy of those statistics I don't think it's controversial that they are less accurate than modern ones but that doesn't mean we should abandon all analysis. The author also seems to place an excessive degree of faith in modern statistics, ignoring some pretty well known problems with American jurisprudence that this isn't the thread for but that I'm sure you're familiar with. I haven't read Pinker but I glanced through the wikipedia page for his book and it seems like there are easier ways to attack his thesis, offhand the tenfold increase in murder rates in the USA in the first 30 years of the last century. Just some thoughts though.
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Nov 5, 2021 00:54
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My gut feeling about any "things are just getting safer and safer!" argument that relies on crime statistics is to feel automatically suspect of any self-reported numbers from the very people who've a) been repeatedly demonstrated to be willing to lie systematically and b) whose job performance is judged based on these same numbers.
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Nov 5, 2021 02:13
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Nessus posted:I thought the wine watering was well attested, at least, even if they may have still gotten fully crunk on a lot of it? It is but the view that no respectable person had more than three drinks wasn't necessarily universal. It is possible the ancients loved to get sloshed just as much as we do
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Nov 5, 2021 02:30
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Imagined posted:My gut feeling about any "things are just getting safer and safer!" argument that relies on crime statistics is to feel automatically suspect of any self-reported numbers from the very people who've a) been repeatedly demonstrated to be willing to lie systematically and b) whose job performance is judged based on these same numbers. Well, they tend to pad their numbers the other way because their fundraising and power-expanding strategy is based on a public that perceives them as necessary guardians protecting the public from an eternal and ever-worsening siege. That is getting us extremely far afield though because neither mass media nor police forces meaningfully existed during anything that could be called "ancient history." Anyway to keep us even vaguely on topic, what are some of the more interesting environmental management stories people have from their specialties? So much of Chinese history is the history of flood management and abatement, and I understand that a lot of Sumerian decision making came down to soil salinity and silting but I don't know how much that is archaeological/implicit vs in the historical record.
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Nov 5, 2021 02:49
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We are absolutely not having police chat in this thread. I swear to god I don't know what's with A/T this week but the modern politics forums are over there.
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Nov 5, 2021 02:54
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Tulip posted:That is getting us extremely far afield though because neither mass media nor police forces meaningfully existed during anything that could be called "ancient history." pls don't disparage the Scythian Archers like this
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Nov 5, 2021 02:59
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Grand Fromage posted:We are absolutely not having police chat in this thread. I swear to god I don't know what's with A/T this week but the modern politics forums are over there. what if we talk about augustus's secret police?
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Nov 5, 2021 02:59
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Jazerus posted:what if we talk about augustus's secret police? I'll allow it but you might disappear in the middle of the night.
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Nov 5, 2021 03:02
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Nov 5, 2021 03:02
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Tulip posted:Well, they tend to pad their numbers the other way because their fundraising and power-expanding strategy is based on a public that perceives them as necessary guardians protecting the public from an eternal and ever-worsening siege. Maya cities are built with water management in mind, with the dry season you need to make sure you keep water around, and in the wet season you need to make sure the water doesn't stick around in one spot for too long.
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Nov 5, 2021 03:09
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Tulip posted:That is getting us extremely far afield though because neither mass media nor police forces meaningfully existed during anything that could be called "ancient history."ord. If your village is small enough then one guy yelling really loudly counts as mass-media.
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Nov 5, 2021 03:11
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