alcohol
Alcohol is a chemical.
history:
History: Alcohol is at least 5,000 years old.
The earliest known terra cotta stills were found in what is now Pakistan.
By 1000 B.C.E. the Chinese were distlling rice wine.
For centuries in Europe and America, alcohol was mixed with gunpowder and ignited. If the mixture flashed, then the alochol was “proven”, hence the word “proof” as a measure of alcohol content.
Europeans called distilled beverages distilled “spirits” because of the belief that the essence of the plant was derived while the body of the plant died away.
The Little Ice Age (from the 14th to mid-19th centuries) is the reason that Americans today now drink eleven (11) times as much beer as wine. The lower temperature hurt wine production (grapes required warmer climate) and encouraged the production of beer.
Chinese herbalism:
Chinese gender: strongly yin (cool)
cautions and contraindications:
Cautions and contraindications: You want to reduce or eliminate alcohol from your diet.
Alcohol is harmful to the liver and therefore should be reduced or eliminated from your diet.
