The earliest of Jesus’s miracles in the Gospel of John is his turning water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. The gospel tells us:
In other words, he’s saying, “Usually people break out the good wines first, and then when everyone is too hammered to notice, they bring out the crappy cheap stuff.”
The Romans did apparently preferred sweeter wines than is common today, but part of that was done by adding sweeteners, like honey or lead, or by reducing must and adding it to the wine.
How’s that pre-industrial refrigeration working for you?
Prior to pasteurization, all beverages (except water) were fermented. It was impossible to prevent it.
In New England in the 1830s, everyone drank hard cider. Water was pretty iffy back then. Also, they differentiated between fermented beverages (created by God, since they didn’t know about yeast) and distilled beverages (created by man).
Past tense of “breed” (rhymes with “need”) is “bred” (rhymes with “bed”).
Prayer for the Patriarch with Teenaged Daughters (Gen. 19)
O Lord, Who didst in Thy infinite mercy contrive to save Thy servant Lot not from destruction only, but also from his wife; grant that like unto Lot I may drink wine until I am drunken, and be no longer responsible for my actions, and that my teenage daughters may come in unto me, and it won’t be my fault, and lie with me, one at a time, without my having hardly any idea what’s happening, or better still, lie with me both together, O Lord! Amen.
From Not The Bible, © 1983 by Tony Hendra and Sean Kelly. I believe this falls under Fair Use for the purposes of this thread.
As long as we’re nitpicking, so is the past participle.
My father made hos own wine, and it was STRONG. I’m certain it was well above 10%.
As noted, the Greeks diluted their wine. They even had special mixing bowls for this purpose with their own characteristic shape and name. Only barbarians drank undiluted wine.
In the Odyssey the skinfull of wine that Odysseus brings to what turns out to be the Cyclops’ cave is said to be incredibly concentrated – you were supposed to mix a cupfull of the wine to a jug of water. Which helps explain why the Cyclops, despite being huge, gets dead-drunk so easily.
Mmm… lead… like those sweet things that peel off the walls!
Pure Roman wine was a luxury item in ancient Rome, where vinum from the region of Falernia was considered a delicacy. Judging from Horace’s comment quis puer ocius restinguet ardentis Falerni pocula praetereunte lympha? - “what slave-boy will put out (my) cup of blazing Falernian with passing water” (Carm II.11), even sophisticated Roman palates preferred to dilute their wine.
Amoung the lower classes Posca–a diluted mixture of sour wine and herbs–was quite popular and served as a standard “grog” for soldiers throughout Roman history. There was also Lora, a poor-man’s wine made from leftover grape skins.
Speaking of which, I never realized there was an ancient lead-based sweetener until somebody mentioned “lead sugar” a while back and I looked it up on Wikipedia and was quite fascinated at the result.
In Luke 7 Jesus says:
“For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and
you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking,
and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax
collectors and “sinners.”’” (Luke 7:33-34)
We see this again in Mathew 11. (King James says “wine-bibber” instead of drunkard).
It seems clear to me that there was alcohol in the wine.
Yikes! That is really creepy especially since Tony Hendra’s daughter has alleged that he sexually abused her.
Perhaps he’d drunk too much wine.