The Origin Of Alcohol As A Alcoholic Beverage Among The...

â€Å"Alcohol may be man s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy†Ã¢â‚¬â€Frank Sinatra. In chemistry, alcohol is any substance with sugars that have been fermented (Hirst). Alcohol has been a part of human history for an immense amount of time; evidence of an alcohol drink in China dates back to 7000 BCE (Hirst). Ancient Egyptians are cited as having had some form of alcohol (Hirst). Sura was a prominent Indian alcohol made from rice from 3000 BCE to 2000 BCE (Hirst). Babylonians had various alcohols and worshipped a goddess of wine and beer by the name of Sidura; Sidura appears as a character in Gilgamesh, the earliest surviving work of literature that dates back to 2750 BCE (Hirst). Mead was made from fermented honey and water, and it†¦show more content†¦All of these Christian denominations believed that alcohol was a gift from God, but to â€Å"†¦get drunk with wine,† (New International Version, Eph 5.18) was to sin. For the next few hundred years, alcohol consumption was seen as an act for moderation. The nineteenth century marks the beginning of a great push for temperance during the Second Great Awakening; this was founded upon an increased level of alcoholism in Europe and America during a time of Industrialization that called for the need of reliable workers (Holt). The Puritan push for temperance became stronger, and in 1826, the Society for the Promotion of Temperance was formed with over five thousand chapters across the United States; this group was partly responsible for the implementation of the illegality of buying alcohol in many states on a Sunday (Indiana is the only state in which this law remains in effect) and for the movement that preceded the Prohibition in 1920 (Holt). The Prohibition disallowed Americans to produce, import, transport, or sell alcoholic beverages; it lasted for thirteen years until the twenty-first amendment ended it because of the reaction it sparked (Holt). In the twenty-first c entury, the minimum drinking age in all fifty states in America is 21 years old. The science of alcohol, the social science of alcohol, and the international usage of alcohol factor into the controversy of this magic number: 21. Ethanol, the alcohol