Alcohol is also very easy, which is a huge part of the problem. It's extremely easy to make, and to refine. Anything with sugars in it will easily ferment with

Alcohol is also very easy, which is a huge part of the problem. It's extremely easy to make, and to refine. Anything with sugars in it will easily ferment with simple exposure to the atmosphere and the ever-present yeast in it -- fruit that fall off trees when ripe will very quickly ferment, and our bodies themselves produce some amounts of it as part of metabolism. Once you have some alcohol it's also very easy to refine it to something stronger, you don't need distillation, just some method of removing the non-alcohol components of the mix, such as simply freezing the mixture to a temperature where the water is frozen but the alcohol isn't; You can take a bucket of low-% fermented fruit juice, leave it to freeze overnight, and take out the ice in the morning. Presto, you have a basic braga that's going to be much more potent. Alcohol is also very useful for a lot of chemical processes we rely on for many of our industries, so it will always be in demand industrially. A lot of humans (and other mammals and birds even) also like the effects that it has, despite the unpredictability and side effects. It's just too good at smoothing out many social interactions in ways that we humans are fans of. It's also a very good source of easy calories that are very shelf stable and for the most part safe to consume even if the storage conditions were poor. Small beer was a thing for a reason - even a low concentration renders most pathogens inactive enough that it's mostly safe to consume. Until we figure out some way to simulate the positive effects without the negatives, a Synthahol if you will, I don't think we'll be able to do better. And the Synthahol will need to be cheaper and easier to obtain than literally just leaving some fruit juice to ferment in a jar.