Fermented & Cultured Drinks
Any sugary liquid left alone will ferment itself, so cultured drinks were discovered rather than invented, and discovered repeatedly. The oldest chemical evidence, from Jiahu in China around 7000 BCE, is a mix of rice, honey and fruit; Georgia’s wine jars and Mesopotamia’s beer follow within a few thousand years. What people added was control: choosing the sugar, the vessel, and the moment to stop.
