and beer and spirits are very different foods Wine begins with fruits that are fragrant and sweet with sugars, and therefore ready-made to ferment into an aromatic drink — but only during the few days of the year when they’re ripe Grapes and wine are a gift of nature, a form of grace, which the winemaker must accept when they’re given, and can leave largely to themselves to realize their innate potential for producing flavor Beer and rice alcohols, by contrast, are the expression of everyday human effort and ingenuity They’re made from sugarless, aroma-less dry grains, the charmless but dependable staff of life Brewers transform grains into something fermentable and aromatic by sprouting them or cultivating molds on them for days, and cooking them for hours They can do this at any time of the year, anywhere in the world Beer is thus our universal alcohol, comfortably local and everyday and ordinary, yet sometimes extraordinary And distilled spirits are the heart of wine and beer, concentrates of their volatile and aromatic content, and drinks of unmatched intensity The pleasure of tasting a good beer or wine or spirit grows with the recognition that its flavor is the expression of many natural, cultural, and personal particulars: a place and its traditions, certain plants and the soil they grew in, a year and its weather, the course of fermentation and maturation, the taste and skills of the maker Their rich natural and human parentage explains why alcohols are so absorbingly diverse, and why a thoughtful sip can momentarily fill us with the world and delight The Drink of Happiness Nearly 4,000 years ago, a Sumerian poet put these words into the mouth of the goddess Inanna, who ruled both heaven and earth and was as delighted as any mortal by the experience of drinking beer Ninkasi ... or spirit grows with the recognition that its flavor is the expression of many natural, cultural, and personal particulars: a place and its traditions, certain plants and the soil they grew in, a year and its weather, the course of. ..spirits are the heart of wine and beer, concentrates of their volatile and aromatic content, and drinks of unmatched intensity The pleasure of tasting a good beer or wine or spirit grows with the recognition that its... grew in, a year and its weather, the course of fermentation and maturation, the taste and skills of the maker Their rich natural and human parentage explains why alcohols are so absorbingly diverse, and why a thoughtful sip