4 ms·

I've heard that there's sufficient yeasts on the skin of a typical grape that you can get fermentation without human intervention. If that's true, then for a s

I've heard that there's sufficient yeasts on the skin of a typical grape that you can get fermentation without human intervention. If that's true, then for a sufficiently broad definition of "wine" and "produced" it seems to follow that wine probably predated mead. Deliberate - and particularly large scale - production by humans is a more interesting question, of course.

Jedd 4y ago
Sure, and at that point you get into the definition of beverage (is a mouldy bunch of grapes in a forest a beverage, if there's no one to drink it?). I'd suggest that from a purely evolutionary perspective, honey bees predate grapes, and wild yeasts would certainly have turned an abandoned bee nest into an ad hoc mini-bar on more than one occasion during pre-modern history, but I feel I'm now veering way off from my challenge to that original claim.
- cjohnson318 4y ago
  Isn't honey antibiotic though? When I've made mead, I always added yeast to it to get it to ferment. I'm not sure an abandoned bee nest would ferment before it just turned into a papery, waxy, lump.
  - dllthomas 4y ago
    Per my understanding, honey is really good at not spoiling until you dilute it.
- orange8 4y ago
  The Merriam Webster defines a beverage as "a drinkable liquid"[1]. If there is no one there to drink it, then it is not drinkable. A beverage requires both a liquid and a drinker to make it drink-able. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beverage https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beverage
  - stockboss 4y ago
    if you go one step deeper, the definition of drinkable is "suitable or safe for drinking", so technically, a beverage just need to be suitable for drinking but it does not need to be actually drank for it to fit the definition. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drinkable https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drinkable
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Jedd 4y ago

Sure, and at that point you get into the definition of beverage (is a mouldy bunch of grapes in a forest a beverage, if there's no one to drink it?). I'd suggest that from a purely evolutionary perspective, honey bees predate grapes, and wild yeasts would certainly have turned an abandoned bee nest into an ad hoc mini-bar on more than one occasion during pre-modern history, but I feel I'm now veering way off from my challenge to that original claim.

cjohnson318 4y ago
Isn't honey antibiotic though? When I've made mead, I always added yeast to it to get it to ferment. I'm not sure an abandoned bee nest would ferment before it just turned into a papery, waxy, lump.
- dllthomas 4y ago
  Per my understanding, honey is really good at not spoiling until you dilute it.
orange8 4y ago
The Merriam Webster defines a beverage as "a drinkable liquid"[1]. If there is no one there to drink it, then it is not drinkable. A beverage requires both a liquid and a drinker to make it drink-able. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beverage https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beverage
- stockboss 4y ago
  if you go one step deeper, the definition of drinkable is "suitable or safe for drinking", so technically, a beverage just need to be suitable for drinking but it does not need to be actually drank for it to fit the definition. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drinkable https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/drinkable

deleted 4y ago

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